A Modern Myth
by soulfulsin
Summary: AU of Night of the Hunter. Webby encounters the boys at age eleven and is forced to re-evaluate her life as a FOWL agent in training.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: This is an AU of an AU...I'm having fun writing it, but I'm not sure where it's going. XD I hope you guys like it. Webby is the same age as the boys in here and the same age (more or less) as they are in the show. Same goes for Gosalyn, who shows up later.

* * *

She crept through the hallways at night and kept a constant lookout for anyone, especially Black Heron. In her hand, she held a flashlight, which she swept across her way. Thus far, she was unimpeded. Her heart hammered between her ribs. What she was doing could land her in a lot of trouble. After all, she wasn't supposed to be sneaking around at night to start with, let alone moving through the archives. But she had to find out more information about her mom. Whatever Steelbeak told her wasn't true. She knew it wasn't. She just had to prove it.

While wandering the endless FOWL HQ hallways, she halted, hearing distressed cries issuing from the holding cells. While it wasn't uncommon to hear SHUSH agents in pain while FOWL agents tortured them, these cries sounded like children. She'd never encountered another child in FOWL HQ. At eleven, she'd spent the last six years of her life surrounded by adults. It was very lonely, something Black Heron loved to harp on.

Switching direction, she crept along the halls, careful to avoid the security cameras (she'd long since memorized their locations), and moved only when the cameras focused on another area. The sounds grew louder the deeper she penetrated and bars shook. Frowning, she glanced upward. The cameras had stopped. Whoever was down here, FOWL didn't want any record of them. That in and of itself was suspicious since they loved to catalog their victories and then watch the recordings.

She shone the light into each of the cells. As she did, she became aware of the low temperature around her, as if someone had left a window open onto a bleak hinterland. It might be winter outside; she didn't know. She hadn't seen the outside world in six years. Steelbeak kept her away from windows and away from the landing pads, as well as anywhere else that might hint at her location. She'd seen snow, though she saw snow all the time, which made her think she was somewhere cold. It could be winter. It could be summer for all she knew.

"Hey! Watch where you shine that thing!" a boy snapped and she whipped about, wielding the flashlight like a weapon with her hand on her waist, where she carried two sharp blades. She approached the cell where she'd heard the voice and then shone the light over into the corner, so as not to blind the prisoners.

"A girl?" a boy wearing a red shirt and red hat said, incredulous. "They made a kid our age be security down here?"

"Our age"? How old did they think she was? For that matter, how old were they? She spied three boys, identical save for their outfits and hairstyles, sprawled about a cell with only one bed, sink, and toilet between them. They seemed familiar, but she couldn't put a finger on why. She toggled the flashlight, dimming the setting.

"You're too young to be SHUSH agents," Webby said. "So what are you doing here?"

"And you're too young to be a FOWL agent," the boy wearing red retorted. He scrutinized her and she scowled back, running her finger along one of her blades' handles.

"I'm a FOWL agent in training," Webby responded.

"Dude, you're what? Twelve? Like us?" the boy wearing a green hoodie responded. "There's no way you're a FOWL agent."

"I'll have you know I'm a FOWL agent in training," she rejoined. "Like I said. That means that I have the authority to reprimand you."

"We're already pretty reprimanded," the green boy said.

"Yeah...but seriously, who are you and what are you doing down there?" the red boy said. She noticed that the blue boy hadn't spoken yet and her eyes narrowed. What secrets was he hiding? Was he the brains of the operation and was sizing her up before shooting off his mouth? She stroked the knife hilt, anxiety churning butterflies in her stomach.

"That's what you want. You want me to give my name and rank, so you can use it against me later. Not going to happen," she said. "But I'm curious. Since when does FOWL capture kids?"

"We're not 'just kids'," the blue boy said, finally speaking. "We're Scrooge McDuck's nephews."

"Scrooge McDuck…" she echoed. That name sounded oddly familiar. The color drained from her face. Memories threatened to overwhelm her and she groaned, clutching her head and stepping back from them. McDuck Manor. Her grandmother. No, no, no, she'd fought so hard to keep them from surfacing. Steelbeak had urged her to forget her past life. She wasn't part of Duckburg anymore.

Tears pricking her eyes, she collapsed onto the floor and wrapped her arms about her head. She was developing a massive headache.

"Hey, didn't Mrs. Beakley mention that she had a granddaughter once who was taken by FOWL?" one of the boys, the red one she thought, said. "Webbigail Vanderquack?"

It was on the tip of her tongue to respond to her name and she shuddered, knowing she was showing weakness before her enemies. With an effort, she straightened herself up and toughened her stance. Her head still pounded and she felt none too steady, but they didn't need to know that. They didn't need to know anything they could use against her.

"You think you're so clever," she snapped.

"Excuse me?" the red boy said and Webby shone the flashlight in their eyes, on each boy in turn, so that they winced at the brightness. "Could you turn that down? Please?"

"Are you Webbigail Vanderquack?" the green boy said.

"That's none of your business," she informed him archly. "Who are you really? Are you here to bring down FOWL from the inside? Because that's not going to happen."

"We're here because we were kidnapped!" the green boy said, exasperated. "We're not part of some vast conspiracy on the part of McDuck Enterprises or SHUSH."

"Uh huh. A likely story," Webby said.

"Seriously, if you're Webbigail Vanderquack, you've got to be as scared as we are," the blue boy said and she scoffed.

"Scared? I laugh in the face of danger," she shot back. And if she were scared, she wouldn't admit it to them. She didn't know them from a hole in the wall. Still...her heart pounded, thinking of McDuck Manor and her grandmother, whose face she could no longer recall. Her head throbbed and she braced herself against the bars for a second.

"Are you okay?" the blue boy murmured.

"Dude, don't engage with her. And don't get that close," the green boy hissed.

"She's an enemy," the red boy agreed.

Ignoring them, the blue boy approached the bars and touched her shoulder. "Hey. I'm Dewey. And these are my brothers, Huey and Louie."

"I'm-" she stopped. They knew who she was. She just had no intention of proving them right.

"Ha, you're just trying to get me to lower my guards so I'll trust you and then you'll-" she stopped again.

"We'll what?" the red boy said. "We just want to get out of here."

So did she. Before she could stop herself, she blurted, "What's it like outside?"

"You've never been outside?" Dewey said. "How is that possible?"

Webby shrugged. "I've been living here since I was five."

"And they never let you leave? Never?" Dewey responded, shocked.

"You are Webbigail Vanderquack," one of the boys, Huey or Louie, said. Dewey hadn't pointed out which was which.

"I'm Webby," Webby agreed in a small voice. There was no point in denying it now. The boys stared at her and she stared back, defiant, but she could feel her defenses crumbling. She'd never had to keep them up against fellow children before. Moreover, they represented a past she had thought long gone. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep her lower beak from trembling.

"Wait, they seriously kept a kid in here?" the green boy said. "And, argh, since Dewey already introduced us, I'm Louie. The nerd with the red hat is Huey."

"Thanks, Llewellyn," Huey said.

"Hey, that was a low blow, Hubert," Louie shot back.

"You've been stuck inside for six years?" Dewey said, ignoring his brothers' quibble. "By yourself? There are no other kids here?"

"No," she said. "But I don't need anyone else. I've got my knives-they're named Stabby and Pinchy. And I've got my studies."

"You don't have any friends?" Huey said. "Anyone to talk to?"

"Guys, are you forgetting that she's an enemy?" Louie huffed. "She's part of FOWL. She said it herself."

"She's been kidnapped by FOWL," Huey corrected.

"You don't have any friends?" Dewey said.

"I don't need friends," she said, but it rang hollow. She was lonely, horribly lonely, and terribly alone. The loneliness could be crippling at times, especially when she saw FOWL agents fraternize and then silence when they caught sight of her. Being a child was one thing, but being Steelbeak's get was something else entirely. It marked her as "other" and nigh on untouchable, which meant even if someone wanted to get close to her, they didn't dare lest they offend Steelbeak.

"Everyone needs someone," Huey said. He approached the bars too, sensing that she wouldn't attack them. Her shoulders slumped and she wanted to muster her old defiance and guardedness, but nothing came.

"You've been trapped here for six years, without being let outside, without seeing other kids, and you walk around with knives," Louie said. "What kind of life are you leading down here?"

"Why did FOWL kidnap you? Because you're Scrooge's nephews?" Webby retorted, unwilling to continue discussing herself.

"I don't know," Louie huffed. "We didn't ask."

She ought to leave, but she couldn't bring herself to do that either. This was the first social interaction she'd had in years that didn't revolve around instructions or being demeaned. She hadn't realized how desperate she was for it until it was here. It was like a precious gift, like water in the desert. She swallowed hard, her throat tight.

"Webby," Dewey said, bringing her attention back to him. "You haven't tried to escape?"

"There's nowhere to go," she said with a shrug. "Security's tighter the higher up in the base you go, the guards carry guns, and anyway, I'm pretty sure we're in the middle of frozen tundra."

"Is that a whip mark on your cheek?" Huey said softly and she touched her face. She'd forgotten that was there.

"Black Heron gets a little impatient during training sessions," she said with a shrug. "So she loses her temper sometimes and hits me."

She said this in a nonchalant way because to her, this was perfectly normal. The boys, however, looked aghast.

"She hits you?" Huey said.

"Don't your parents do that?" Webby asked, perplexed. "I thought all adults did that to let off steam."

"No...our uncle Donald's never hit us…" Dewey said. "We need to break you out of here."

"And ourselves," Louie hissed. "Don't forget about ourselves."

"You know how to get out of these cells, right? And you know how the base is laid out? I bet you could figure a way to sneak us all out," Huey said.

"I told you," she huffed. "There's nowhere to go."

"But the people here must have a means of coming and going," Huey argued. "So there must be a way to get off base. And there has to be a way to send a distress signal out to Uncle Scrooge and Launchpad. We can get out of here. All of us."

"Are we sure we want to take her?" Louie objected. "I mean…"

"We're all getting out of here," Huey said firmly. "All of us. From now on, Webby is included."

"But we barely know her," Louie argued.

"But we know she's miserable," Dewey replied. "Aren't you, Webs?"

"Webs?" Webby repeated. "Did you just give me a nickname?"

"Yeah. Do you like it?" Dewey said and Webby blushed.

"I've never had a nickname before...I mean, yeah, they call me 'Webby', but it's usually in a tone of annoyance," she said with another shrug. She'd never been given a term of endearment before. She studied Dewey closely and he smiled at her. She blushed harder.

"I'll get the keys and let you guys out," she promised.

"Thanks," Dewey said and beamed at her.

"Dewey Duck, the charmer," Huey muttered.

"Let's hope she's charmed enough not to turn on us," Louie said and Huey glowered at him. "Seriously, you guys. You barely know her. What makes you think she isn't going to turn us in at the first opportunity?"

"I have a feeling about her," Dewey said. "She's good at heart."

"How can you tell that?" Louie rejoined. "For all we know, she's evil to the core."

"No, she isn't," Huey said. "She had the opportunity to hurt us and she didn't. She flinched when Dewey touched her. It makes me wonder if every time someone touches her, they hit her."

"Well, I still don't like this idea," Louie proclaimed and then, as she walked away, she heard him add, "But I do kinda feel bad for her."

"We thought we had it rough living with uncle Donald," Dewey agreed. "But think of how bad she must've had it here."

She didn't think her life was that bad. Yes, she was miserable most of the time and she sometimes wished she could disappear, but what right did she have to complain? She knew no other life. She couldn't recall being with her grandmother, except for bits and pieces that she tried to suppress. The headache continued throbbing at her temples and she swallowed hard. When she reached for the keys, her hand was shaking.

She wouldn't let them down. She'd help them escape. As for herself, however, she belonged here. She wasn't good enough for the surface world and anyway, they didn't want her. Steelbeak and Black Heron had beat that lesson into her. The only people who wanted her lived here. She'd find no succor anywhere else.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: I already have a few chapters written for this, including one I posted today on the LJ. I'm really enjoying how this differs from Night of the Hunter.

* * *

Dewey watched Webby navigate FOWL's labyrinthine corridors. He yanked her back before a flashlight illuminated her and she shuddered again. Did anyone ever touch her in an innocent way? When was the last time she'd been hugged? They'd never met an abused kid before and although she was trying to conceal it, her physical reactions were harder to suppress.

They proceeded as soon as it was safe and the beams landed on an empty hall. He could feel her pulse pounding in her wrist and she hissed, yanking her arm back. For a second, he glimpsed terror in her eyes. It made his heart ache. Louie saw things through the angles. Huey made lists and planned ahead of time. Dewey felt things through. And right now, his heart was screaming out for her. They had to bring her. She had to come home with them.

"What's this? Webbigail, you've made friends?" a woman sneered and the kids froze. Black Heron stepped around the corner and pointed a plasma gun at Webby. To her credit, she didn't flinch, though she did stiffen. Her eyes narrowed.

"Shouldn't you be asleep, Heron?" she shot back. She stepped protectively before the group with her arms out and he remembered how her heart had raced beneath his fingers.

"Shouldn't you be?" she countered. "I should have known you'd find the Duck brats. Your bleeding heart will be the death of you."

"What I do is none of your concern."

She swung the plasma cannon and Webby yanked the boys down before bouncing off the wall and kicking Heron in the face. Black Heron grabbed her by the foot and slammed her against the wall. Webby pushed off against her and Black Heron held the cannon to her head.

"Now, now, Webbigail. Let's not get too hasty. After all, we've only just met your new friends," Heron sneered. The cannon glowed against her face and Webby betrayed her nerves by shivering. Black Heron snickered and patted Webby condescendingly.

"If Steelbeak finds out you're holding me hostage again-" Webby started.

"I should kill you," Heron said. "You and the brats."

"Steelbeak would kill you."

"Unfortunately," Heron agreed. "How dare anyone touch his precious child from that whore."

"My mother was not a whore," Webby snapped.

"Maybe we should move while they're distracted," Louie suggested in an undertone.

"We leave without her, we have no way of knowing where we're going," Huey pointed out. "She knows how this base is laid out. We don't."

Black Heron scoffed, unconvinced. She patted Webby's head again and Webby struggled in her arms.

"What makes you think I'm letting any of you leave here? I may not be able to touch you, Webbigail, but the boys are fair game. How would you like their suffering on your conscience?"

She sneered again. "You're the only FOWL 'agent' with a conscience. Clearly, it hasn't been beaten out of you yet. That was a mistake. If Steelbeak would only let me have full reign over you...I'd show you true misery."

Dewey's gaze caught hers and she mouthed 'go!' at them.

He shook his head. It wouldn't be right to leave her alone with this insane villain. Thinking fast, he assessed the area for something to throw at Black Heron. There was always Huey's JWG, though he thought his brother might be a bit miffed if he did that. Oh, well. Act now, worry later. That was his motto.

"You barely know them and you've managed to inspire loyalty," Black Heron said. "Perhaps there is something of your father in there after all."

She dropped Webby on the floor, but before the girl had a chance to recover and attack, she kicked her into the wall and then pinned her there with her knee in Webby's stomach. Webby kicked and punched, the wind knocked out of her, and Dewey exchanged a look with his brothers. The plasma cannon looked to be powered down and the boys rushed Heron, bowling her over and releasing Webby. Webby, surprised but thinking on her feet, cracked Heron's head against the cement wall and then, while the woman was dazed, hurried the boys along until they were out of cannon range.

"Thanks," Webby said. She was gasping for breath and although she'd managed to bolt, she was holding her stomach. Dewey offered her a hand and she shook her head at him.

"I can manage," she said.

"What did Black Heron mean, 'the only FOWL agent with a conscience'?" Huey asked.

"I've been getting into trouble for showing mercy to my opponents," Webby said, nonchalant. "Black Heron keeps trying to beat my empathy out of me, but Steelbeak stops her before she gets too far."

The boys exchanged horrified glances. This was so far from normal it wasn't even funny. After a minute, Webby recovered, just in time for them to hear Black Heron's boots. They dashed along the halls, her indicating which way they ought to go, and this time, they ignored the security cameras entirely. Webby seemed to be leading them toward the security center; they were no longer attempting to be quiet. Black Heron aimed blasts at them that missed and Webby pushed the boys out of the way when necessary. Once they reached the security center, which was manned by a single guard she knocked out, the boys barricaded the door.

"Well, now we're stuck in here," Louie said.

"But not for long," Huey said. "There has to be something here that can send a signal out to Duckburg."

Dewey gazed over at the controls, but they were too many and overwhelmed him. Judging by the frown creasing Webby's face, she felt similarly. Huey advanced, sizing up the console, and began pushing buttons cautiously. A phone popped up and Huey seized upon it.

"Wow, where are we?" Huey asked of no one in particular. "I just had to dial the country code."

Webby shrugged. "I figured somewhere in Russia. It's not like anyone told me anything."

Dewey drew Webby off to the side. Louie joined, unwilling to leave his brother alone with someone he consisted an enemy combatant. Dewey thought Louie might've been overprotective for once, perhaps because Huey was busy attempting to effect a rescue.

"Do you remember McDuck Manor? You had a weird reaction back there," Dewey said. Webby frowned and several emotions flitted across her face before she shut them out. He didn't know what was going on in her head and he put a hand on her shoulder. She flinched again.

"Hey," he said softly. "We're not going to hurt you. We're the good guys, remember?"

"You're the one inside the headquarters with the acronym 'Fiendish Organization for World Larceny'," Louie scoffed. "We're just victims here."

"You can trust us," Dewey coaxed. Webby shifted from one foot to another.

"Okay, okay, I'll put you on speaker phone," Huey said and they turned toward him. "How do I-oh, there we go."

Pounding ensued from the door and it looked like their time was running short. Hopefully, Uncle Scrooge had had Gyro tracking them down and pinpointing their location so they could send Launchpad out here. But why had whoever Huey was talking to insisted on putting them on speaker?

"Shit," Webby hissed, staring at the door as it rattled in its frame.

"Webbigail Vanderquack!" Mrs. Beakley snapped and Webby froze. She looked like a deer in the headlights.

"Granny?" Webby whispered.

"So she is there," Scrooge mused. "Well spotted, lad. You're coming home with the others, do you hear me, Webbigail?"

Webby didn't answer. She assessed the room before her and broke a chair in half. Dewey might've been impressed if he weren't so unnerved. She brandished a chair leg, which was sharp and metal, and pulled out one of her knives too. She handed the chair leg to Dewey and then passed out two more to Huey and Louie.

"This is going to get ugly," Webby warned.

"What's going on?" Mrs. Beakley demanded.

"We kinda trapped ourselves in the security room so we could call you and it looks like-" Huey started.

Webby cursed again as Black Heron's beam blasted through the door. Black Heron leered at them and Webby feinted, dashing around with the knife and bouncing off the wall. A hand snatched her out of thin air, but it wasn't Black Heron's. Instead, a charming looking chicken with a metallic protuberance materialized and Webby went limp.

"You were right, Heron," Steelbeak said. "Webby, what have I told you about these nighttime wanderings? You're gonna get someone hurt."

Eggheads entered behind the villainous duo and produced guns that they trained on the boys. Dewey gulped, backing up into his brothers.

"Steelbeak!" Mrs. Beakley snarled.

"Agent 22," Steelbeak said with a bright smile. "So good to hear from you after all this time. How are things going? Miss your granddaughter? That's too bad, you know. You shouldn't have tried to take what was mine."

"Webbigail deserves to grow up in an environment free from people like you," Mrs. Beakley hissed.

"Funny, I could say the same thing about you," Steelbeak said. "Round up the kids. We'll put them in the tightest security we've got in here. As for Webby, it looks like it's time for me and her to have a little chat."

"Perhaps it's time you finally broke her spirit," Black Heron suggested with a sneer. "That might put a stop to her precious conscience once and for all."

Steelbeak's expression was inscrutable and Webby pushed away from him, but not for long. He snapped his fingers and another Egghead materialized with a gun trained on her head. She clenched her beak as if determined not to show weakness.

"That's my girl," Steelbeak said. "Let's go."

"Webby!" Mrs. Beakley cried, anguished.

The Eggheads marched everyone out of the room and the last thing Dewey heard from the housekeeper/bodyguard was her heartbroken sigh.

"I'm starting to think I've had too light a hand on you, Webbigail," Steelbeak said, plunking his daughter down in front of him in his office. His office was austere, with only a steel desk, a filing cabinet, a mirror, and two chairs. His was plush leather and hers was metal, designed to be uncomfortable and cold. Her heart hammered in between her ribs.

That was the first time she'd heard her grandmother's voice since before she'd been abducted. That, plus remembering McDuck Manor, had left her shaken. For the first time in six years, she wanted to go home. And home was not here.

"Look at me when I talk to you," Steelbeak snapped. Webby forced her head up.

"I've got a SHUSH agent downstairs in the holding cells. Your job is to kill him after torturing him to find out what he knows. Don't come back up here until he's dead. I'll be watching on the security cameras, Webby. So I'll know if you wimp out."

He stepped away from his desk. "Black Heron's right. I've been too lenient on you. Maybe because you reminded me a little of myself.

"You know, never mind the prisoner for the time being. It looks like some lessons have to be beaten into you. I won't let her kill you, but…"

He shrugged. "Maybe the mercy has to be beaten out of you."

"No, wait, please-" she said and her tongue was thick in her mouth. She was shaking and she balled her hands into her skirt. Both options were equally abhorrent. Wasn't there a third one? One that didn't involve either her being brutalized or brutalizing someone else?

"Those are your options," he said coldly. "Kill the agent and bring me his information or let Black Heron do what I can't."

He smiled suddenly, but there was nothing comforting in his gaze. "Kill or be killed, Webbigail. The first rule of FOWL. Now go. Get out of my sight. And stay away from those Duck brats. Don't even think about returning to McDuck Manor. Your home is here, with us. Your grandmother doesn't want you-she definitely won't want you after she sees what you've become."


	3. Chapter 3

Webby sat in front of the prisoner and they watched each other. The prisoner was a pig, trim despite his species, and his gaze was hooded as it regarded her. FOWL's toughs had already started working on him and he had bruises and lacerations all over his body. A particularly nasty one had nearly cut his left nostril in half. Webby's heart thudded in her chest.

If she didn't kill this agent, Steelbeak would give her to Black Heron to be pummeled into near oblivion. If she killed this agent, she'd lose part of her soul. She gnawed the inside of her cheek. Either way, she'd destroy something essential. How much of herself did she want to lose? Did she want to be a FOWL agent? No one seemed to think she was cut out for it, but if she didn't want to be that, then what could she possibly do with her life? She had nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to.

Steelbeak had given her her choice of weapons. She could kill the agent using a long, serrated blade or with a poisoned garrote that would lead to more pain before the agent perished. Both would require her to get up and personal with him. And looking at either weapon twisted her stomach.

She could only hope that the boys had gotten away safely. They didn't belong here. Maybe...maybe that was the price of their freedom.

"They sent a child?" the agent said, disgust thick in his tone. "Little girl, what are you doing here?"

"I'm not a 'little girl'," Webby corrected, lifting her head from her inspection of the weapons. "My name is Webbigail Vanderquack and I'm Steelbeak's daughter. I'm a FOWL agent in training and you will respect me."

"You're...you're Agent 22's granddaughter…" the agent breathed. She sat across from him on a bench with the cell bars between them and he grasped the bars and stared at her like she was a missing treasure.

"Yeah, so?" she threw back at him. "What does it matter?"

"You're Agent 22's granddaughter," he repeated as if it mattered. As if it changed anything. She bristled, glowering at him.

"So what?" she snapped.

"So, you're supposed to be better than this."

"I'm not, okay?" she cried and her hands trembled. She unlocked the cell and ignored her hands trembling. If they kept shaking, though, she wouldn't be able to hold a knife or a garrotte. She needed to calm down. She needed to...but she couldn't do this. Inwardly, she cursed and she swallowed back a cry of despair.

"If you get me out of here, I promise I'll bring you back home," the agent said in a quiet voice. Webby glanced upward at the security cameras. "I'll bring you back to your family."

She faltered and steeled herself.

"Steelbeak is my family," she said softly. "Not Agent 22. She let him take me. She doesn't deserve me."

"That's not what happened," the agent replied and she lunged, thinking only of silencing him and the doubts in her mind, but he caught her arm easily. Her lower beak quivered and she wanted to cry. However, she was stronger than that. She wouldn't give up and she wouldn't give in.

"You don't want to do this."

"Don't tell me what I want to do," she snapped back and swallowed hard. "I have to. I don't have a choice."

"You have a choice," he countered. "You could let me out and I'll bring SHUSH here. Just give me back my gear."

Webby cast another glance at the camera in the corner. It recorded audio too, didn't it? Her heart was in her throat.

"If you were going to kill me, you would have done so already."

He was right. Damn him, but he was right. Her shoulders slumped. If she didn't kill him, she'd probably be beaten to within an inch of her life by Black Heron. But she couldn't, she couldn't throw away that part of her, not in cold blood. Perhaps to defend herself, she could, but she couldn't conceive of it otherwise.

"Webbigail," the agent said and she looked up at him. "Your grandmother wants you to come home. I swear."

All she needed to do was lunge again and hit him hard enough to kill him. The poison would take care of the rest. Or she could strangle him. There were options, yet she knew she couldn't do any of them. What kind of FOWL agent was she?

"Pathetic," Black Heron snapped. "First, you let the Duck brats escape and then you can't complete a simple murder. You're weak, Webbigail Vanderquack. Typical that I have to clean up your messes."

She pulled out her plasma cannon and Webby jumped out of the way as she destroyed the agent where he was standing. Webby's lower beak quivered again and she hugged herself. This wasn't the first time she'd seen someone killed in front of her, but it always shocked her. He'd been alive one second and a pile of ash the next. Her heart hammered between her ribs and she felt ill.

"At least Steelbeak is finally seeing sense and letting me have full reign with you," she continued, sneering. "You'd better protect yourself because I have no intention of holding back."

She blasted at Webby and the girl jumped, doing a backflip to avoid the shot. This was followed by three in rapid succession before the woman had to reload and Webby lashed out with the knife. Black Heron knocked it away with her metallic arm; she'd kept an eye on one of her arms, but not the other. With the other, she wrapped the garrote around Black Heron's long neck. She pulled when Black Heron knocked aside her right hand. The garrote was in her left hand, her non-dominant hand, which wasn't ideal, but Webby had trained for a long time to be ambidextrous. She wasn't quite as proficient with her left hand; the difference, however, was minimal.

Black Heron choked and Webby yanked harder, hatred and terror lending her strength. The wire bit into her neck and Black Heron tugged on it with her good arm. Webby kicked her away, still holding the wire, and blood sprayed. It landed in her mouth and soaked her face and feathers. She choked on the hot iron taste.

Carotid artery, her mind whispered. That was what she'd been aiming for. Black Heron got an arm underneath the wire and Webby cut through that too, pulling like her life depended on it. More blood flew and then the wire went slack. Webby gasped, stumbling backward, and landed on her rear. She heard applause, but it only registered dimly, as did the next few words she heard.

"Brava, Webby. Not the person I wanted you to kill, but if Black Heron was stupid enough to put herself between a garrote and you, she deserved to die."

Deserved to die? Had she...no, that was impossible. Webby wiped the blood out of her eyes and stared at Black Heron's limp, unmoving form. Then, her stomach comprehending before her mind did, she threw up before bursting into tears.

For a long while, there was silence and she hugged her knees. She could taste the vomit in her beak and it had splattered her, along with the blood, but she didn't dare move. If she moved, that would make it real. She didn't want to be a murderer. She hadn't meant to kill Black Heron. Therefore, she couldn't be dead. She'd never intended to kill anyone. That was why she'd refused to kill the SHUSH agent.

Distantly, she worried about what had befallen the Duck triplets. Had they evaded detection? Or had they been recaptured and thrown into a more secure holding cell so that Webby couldn't access them? She knew they wouldn't want anything to do with her now, now that she was...no. She wasn't. She couldn't be. She wasn't a murderer, damn it.

Steelbeak arrived twenty minutes later to find his daughter still in a state of shock. Webby barely noticed his entrance. She was locked in sheer horror. She'd hooked her arms about her legs and wasn't sure she could move if she wanted to. About five feet away, Black Heron's body was cooling. Her body. That implied she was no longer alive to inhabit it. No longer alive because Webby had killed her.

"Webby," Steelbeak said and his voice was disturbingly gentle. Wide-eyed, she watched him kneel near her. He didn't get his pants dirty, of course; his resplendent white outfit remained pristine.

"You did amazing. You're better than I ever thought. Your real FOWL training will begin as soon as you clean up. In fact, why don't you take a day off and start tomorrow? You should celebrate."

Webby's stomach cramped and she dry heaved. Bile burned her throat and, for the first time in six years, her grandmother's face came to her so clearly that it hurt. She couldn't stop crying.

"Granny…" she whimpered.

"Oh, no. You're never seeing her again. You're a cold-blooded killer. You need to own it."

While avoiding getting splatter on his suit, he helped her to her feet. She swayed and would have fallen if he hadn't nodded to his Eggheads to support her. He continued to praise her; she tuned him out. The words had become meaningless. She didn't want the praise. Impossible as it seemed, she wanted Black Heron back, alive and menacing her. It was hard to conceive of a future in which Black Heron wasn't tormenting her because Webby had ended her life.

"Webby!" a voice called and she turned her head. Dewey and his brothers were back in a holding cell, as she had suspected. Her lower beak quivered harder and she broke away from Steelbeak and the Eggheads.

"What happened to you?" Huey asked, frowning. She gripped the jail bars hard as if the metal pressing against her fingers might help eradicate the dread feeling she'd done something horribly wrong that could never be remedied.

"Hey, hey, no fraternizing with the enemy," Steelbeak called. He snapped his fingers and the Eggheads pulled on her.

"Are you okay?" Dewey asked and she was surprised by the concern in his voice. She'd barely known him an hour and he actually cared? She suddenly and violently wished she were inside the cell with him instead of on the outside with the Eggheads extracting her from the bars.

"No," she said softly. "No, I'm not."

Steelbeak sneered. "She's better than fine. She's on her way to becoming a ranking FOWL agent. She doesn't have time for the likes of you."

"They're coming!" Dewey shouted, desperate as the Eggheads dragged her away.

"Who's coming?" Steelbeak asked.

"Hold on," Dewey said softly, ignoring him. "It'll be okay."

"Who's coming?" Steelbeak repeated. "I don't like being ignored, kid."

"You'll come home with us," Dewey added. Their eyes met and the goodness in Dewey's brought fresh tears to her eyes.

"She's not going anywhere," Steelbeak scoffed. "And let Scrooge McDuck and the rest of SHUSH show up, if they're so keen on it. This is my turf, my base. They don't stand a chance. Now, c'mon, Webbigail. I think it's time you got a few upgrades."

* * *

Dewey watched Webby and the others recede into the background. Webby looked traumatized, covered in blood and vomit with tears streaking her cheeks. He didn't know what had happened or whether the blood was hers, but he knew something was deeply wrong. He looked at his brothers; Huey was frowning and Louie was staring in the direction the others had gone.

"What do you think happened?" Huey asked in an undertone. He shuddered, recalling the blood and viscera, not to mention the vomit, covering the girl.

"I don't know, but she looked miserable," Dewey said. Louie scoffed.

"Of course she looked miserable. I'd be miserable if I were covered in all of that too," he said.

"That's not what I meant," Dewey objected.

"She could have sold us out, but she didn't," Huey mused.

"Poor Webby…" Dewey said and Louie huffed.

"You barely know her. You don't know what she was mixed up in," he reprimanded. "Since when do I have to be the voice of reason? Isn't that Huey's job?"

"Louie's right. We don't know what she's mixed up in," Huey added.

"Maybe not, but I hope Mrs. Beakley shows up with an army," Dewey said.

"Me too," Huey said. He looked contemplative. "It can't be healthy for her to be here, regardless of what's going on."

Dewey nodded, throat tight. She was their missing sister. He just knew it. They were supposed to have grown up together and FOWL had taken that away from them. Webby had been denied a normal childhood and he intended to rectify that if he could.


	4. Chapter 4

Notes:

Bonus chapter!

*goes off to read*

* * *

They crashed through FOWL's roof; this was partially by design and partially because Launchpad was terrible at landing. Darkwing Duck, Quiverwing, and Agent 22 disembarked first. Scrooge was a little slower and he rolled his eyes at Donald, who had insisted on coming along. Other SHUSH agents had also decided to come along because the goal was not just to find the Duck triplets, but to locate and extract Webbigail. Mrs. Beakley ignored the byplay between Donald and Scrooge. She had a mission and she wasn't sure she could hold back if push came to shove. If someone got in her way, she might not be able to leave them alive.

As for Steelbeak and Black Heron, if they had touched a feather on her granddaughter's head, they would be sorry. Huey hadn't had the time to give them a full report on what he perceived Webby's conditions were, but Mrs. Beakley had to assume they weren't optimal. Steelbeak wasn't predisposed toward paternal affection. And Huey had said Webby had flinched every time someone touched her. That argued for abuse and it took everything within her not to scream and plow through every enemy operative in FOWL to reach Webby.

She had to master her emotions before they mastered her, but it was difficult. Being here, finally being where her granddaughter had been for so many years, was almost too much to bear. Clenching her beak tightly, she balled and released her fists. She was shaking in rage.

"Careful, 22," Scrooge advised. "Don't lose your temper."

"Your nephews are in there," she said through a clenched beak. "You can't tell me that you don't want to destroy everyone between you and them."

"I do," he admitted. He glanced over his shoulder, where Donald had rushed ahead with Darkwing and Quiverwing. "But running wild in FOWL HQ without a plan is not the way to rescue Webbigail."

"Are you telling me my job, Mr. McDuck?" she snapped. Without waiting for a response, she dashed after the others. Scrooge sighed behind her and she had to resist the strong temptation to punch him out. He didn't feel as strongly about his grand-nephews as she did about Webby. That was fine. Donald did. Donald understood exactly what she was going through. As sad as it was, Donald might be her greatest ally here. Him and Darkwing Duck, whose daughter was Webby's age.

She didn't know how Gosalyn had wheedled her way into this mission. She was too young by far, but it was too late to turn back. Mrs. Beakley would rather have plucked her feathers out, one by one, than return to Duckburg.

They swept through the top floors without stopping. Eggheads and various FOWL lackeys tried to stop them and she barely saw them. Gyro had managed to acquire a floor map and was guiding them as best he could through earpieces. Mrs. Beakley barely heard him. She'd seen the floor plan en route and she wasn't bothering to wait for the others to catch up to her before barreling forward.

The triplets were being held in a detention center in a cell two floors below ground. Webby, however, was the unknown variable. She had no idea where Steelbeak might have stashed her. Once Mrs. Beakley found her, she intended to blow up the base, preferably with Steelbeak inside. It might've been cruel and vindictive, but she was beyond caring. Webby had a whip mark on her face. She flinched at the touch. Someone had hurt her granddaughter and they would pay.

Deciding that she might be in the base's residential section, she barreled forward, separating from the others. In the back of her mind, she knew that might not be the best policy. Her heart pounded and she passed unidentified rooms. Bullets shot at her and she disposed of the agents as quickly as possible. She was like a tank; no one would dare stand in her way. Behind her, Darkwing Duck was spraying gas bombs at people to prevent them from retaliating. For once in her life, she was grateful for him.

"Dad!" Gosalyn warned the only warning they got before someone slammed into Mrs. Beakley and Darkwing and pinned them against the wall. Realistically, she should have realized that they wouldn't have escaped that easily. Red filled her vision and she kneed the perpetrator in the groin. Darkwing fired his gas gun at point blank range, right into the person's eyes, and Mrs. Beakley flung her assailant into the gas. She was shaking and she barreled forward, not waiting for Darkwing and his daughter to follow her. They were, however. Scrooge and Donald, along with Gizmoduck, had gone down to the cells to locate the triplets. They were their responsibility, not Mrs. Beakley's, not right now.

She almost ran past Webby's room. In a hurry to find her granddaughter, regardless of the fact that her room wasn't marked on the map, she would've missed her if not for her faint voice. Mrs. Beakley did an about-face; she'd run past a room decorated with love beads instead of a door. She backtracked and discovered Webby lying flat on a cot with her head turned toward the doorway. She was flat on her stomach and when she beheld her grandmother, her expression didn't change. Instead, Webby stared at her with a dispassionate gaze, almost vacant. It alarmed her almost more than the welt on her cheek and the laceration on her right arm.

"What are you doing here?" she asked in a dull voice.

Mrs. Beakley dashed into the room.

"I'm here for you," she said. "C'mon, we can talk later. Mr. McDuck and Donald are extracting the triplets as we speak."

"I'm not going," she said in that same eerily, emotionless voice.

"You can't tell me you'd rather be here," Mrs. Beakley objected. Darkwing Duck and Quiverwing came into the room and Gosalyn walked up to Webby. She reached out to put a hand on her shoulder and Webby flinched away, producing a knife from her hip and holding it defensively in front of her. Then she lowered it as if it wasn't worth the effort. The blade fell to the floor with a clatter.

"I don't belong with you."

"Are you okay?" Gosalyn asked and Webby glanced at her. Her eyes widened and she straightened up on the bed. She sat upright now and was studying Gosalyn with more interest than she'd shown her grandmother.

"You're a kid," Webby said, disbelieving.

"I told her she shouldn't come," Darkwing huffed. "But did she listen? Of course not."

"I'm part of SHUSH," Gosalyn said. "What happened here?"

Webby's hands curled and released, her breathing coming quickly. Mrs. Beakley couldn't help but notice that they were running rather short on time. The longer they lingered here, the greater the chance Black Heron or Steelbeak would come in here.

"We don't have time for this," Mrs. Beakley said. "You have to come with us, Webby."

"You don't want me," Webby said, her gaze locked onto Gosalyn.

"Duh, we came here for you," Gosalyn said. "You and the boys. What would make you think we wouldn't want you?"

Webby's gaze swiveled, landing on her grandmother. There was pain etched in her features and it took Mrs. Beakley's breath away. Unable to stop herself, she rushed toward her granddaughter and opened her arms to hug her. Webby backed up, panting, eyes huge.

"I'm not going to hurt you, dear…" Mrs. Beakley said, baffled.

"I know where the boys are," Webby said. "I'll show you."

"We're here for you," Gosalyn repeated. "Not just them. C'mon. We can talk later. Before Black Heron and Steelbeak show."

"Black Heron isn't coming," Webby said and she seemed dangerously close to hyperventilating. "I killed her."

Seriously alarmed now, she grabbed her granddaughter. This was something they could address later, possibly with a therapist. Webby wormed out of her grasp and dashed to the doorway. Then, before she had a chance to stop her, the duckling darted out into the hall. Gosalyn hastened after her, as did the adults.

"If you killed her-" Gosalyn started.

"I did," Webby said and tears streaked her cheeks. "Leave me alone. You don't want me."

She bounced off the walls and threw herself into a ventilation shaft. Mrs. Beakley cursed. It was too small for an adult to fit. Gosalyn followed and Mrs. Beakley's stomach clenched. There was nothing for it. Gosalyn was their only hope of convincing Webby to stop her headlong dash into self-recrimination and bring her back.

"Hurry!" Darkwing called.

"Working on it!" Gosalyn shot back before vanishing too.

Mrs. Beakley was sick with apprehension. Gyro and the others were still running commentary on what was going on elsewhere in the base, but she didn't care about that. All she cared about was that Webby was here and might still escape her. The thought was unbearable. All their hopes hinged on whether Gosalyn could make a connection with her.

"When she said she killed Black Heron…" Darkwing said quietly.

"I'm sure it was by accident," Mrs. Beakley responded, though she had no such certainty. She wanted to believe the best of her granddaughter, although Steelbeak had had command over her for the last five years.

"Poor kid," Darkwing murmured.

It must've been fairly recently, judging by the fact Webby still appeared to be in shock.

It was killing her that she didn't know what was going on above her. If the girls were talking, she couldn't hear their conversation. On the other hand, she couldn't hear Webby fleeing, either, so Gosalyn must have arrested her movement. She prayed. If Gosalyn could prevent her granddaughter from vanishing into the bowels of FOWL HQ, then her presence here would have more than paid for itself, regardless of the risks of bringing an eleven-year-old child into an enemy base.

As the seconds ticked by, she practiced breathing exercises. Webby had to do the right thing and come with them, didn't she? She stared at the ventilation shaft and Darkwing surprised her by putting a hand on her shoulder.

"She'll do it," he promised. "I have faith in Gos."

Heh. Well, she supposed one of them had to.

* * *

"Your grandmother's been looking for you for five years," Gosalyn said. She could feel the other girl's agitation like a physical thing. She wasn't sure why Webby hadn't started running away again, and she had her fingers crossed.

"She doesn't want me," Webby said and she wondered how much of what she said was penetrating.

"Webby. She came all the way from the United States. It was a seventeen-hour plane ride. Launchpad almost crashed twice. She threatened to swim to find you if she had to."

"I killed Black Heron. I'm a murderer." Webby hugged herself.

"You didn't kill her in cold blood, right? It was self-defense?"

"What difference does it make? A death is a death!"

"Listen to me. It makes a world of difference. You killed her because she wanted to kill you, right? So you didn't have a choice. You had to do it."

"I could have pulled my punches. I could have, I don't know-"

Webby was hysterical and Gosalyn wanted to hug her but had the feeling that it was like approaching a wounded, frightened, cornered animal. It wasn't a good idea for any sudden movements that might put Webby on guard. At least Webby was listening to her now. That was progress.

"And if you'd done that, would she have stopped? Would she have never gone after you again?"

"No…but that doesn't excuse what I did."

"Sometimes you don't have a choice. Sometimes, you have to do something you know is wrong because if you don't, you're dead. Would you rather be dead?"

She shook her head.

"Your grandmother wants you to come back with us. So does everyone else. I know you're upset now, but I've got your back. I promise."

Webby faltered and then, to Gosalyn's extreme relief, moved forward. Gosalyn backed up and they jumped out of the shaft and back onto the floor. Webby still looked shaken, but she wasn't in danger of bolting anymore. They could work with this.

"I hope you're not thinking of leaving, Webbigail," Steelbeak crooned. "Not now that you're a fully fledged FOWL agent."

Gosalyn shifted so that she was standing protectively before Webby and told Steelbeak to do something that she'd heard Darkwing say a few times...albeit not when he thought she could hear him.

"You use that language around your daughter?" Mrs. Beakley said, exasperated.

"Not intentionally!" Darkwing cried.

"Your place is here, with us, Webby," Steelbeak said, ignoring Gosalyn entirely. "You've already achieved your first kill. You're one of us."

"For God's sake, she did it in self-defense!" Mrs. Beakley snapped. "She never meant to kill her!"

"It doesn't matter," Steelbeak said dismissively. "The point is that she's done it and she's reached the point of no return."

No, no, no. Gosalyn could feel all her hard work with Webby slipping away. Webby believed her father. Of course she did. They needed to do something quickly before they lost her completely.

"He's a villain," Gosalyn interjected. "Why would you believe him over us? Yeah, he raised you...after he kidnapped you. He'll say anything to manipulate you into staying. He doesn't care about you, just whatever he can get out of you."

Webby turned her head to regard Gosalyn.

"And you're not doing the same?" Webby countered.

"Of course they are," Steelbeak sneered. "You have a choice, Webby. We understand you. We're your people. They will never accept you, not after what you've done."

"Oh, honestly," Mrs. Beakley snapped. "Do you really suppose that SHUSH is bloodless and we never hurt anyone?"

"You do?" Webby asked. Her voice was tiny, but there was something in her eyes that hadn't been there a moment ago. Hope.

"Of course we do," Mrs. Beakley said.

"Even if that's true," Steelbeak sneered in a tone that indicated he sincerely doubted it, "she lost you. She let you get abducted. What kind of grandmother does that?"

"The kind who was blindsided," Mrs. Beakley rejoined.

"She doesn't deserve you," Steelbeak shot back.

"And she deserves you?" she said scornfully.

"She deserves someone who appreciates her for who she is and what she can do."

"Webby," Gosalyn said, again fearing they were heading down the wrong track. "Does Steelbeak love you? Does he protect you and keep you from danger? Does he defend you? Does he care about you and show you affection?"

"No…" Webby admitted.

"Do you feel safe with him around?" she pressed.

"No...but…" She seemed to have run out of arguments.

"I don't need to coddle her," Steelbeak sneered. "She can take care of herself."

"She's a child, not an agent," Mrs. Beakley snapped.

Webby glanced between Steelbeak and then to the others. It was clear she was growing increasingly uncertain. She frowned and then took a step forward. It felt like everyone here was holding their breath. To Gosalyn's relief, she walked closer to Gosalyn and the others. Gosalyn rewarded her with a bright smile that Webby couldn't reciprocate.

"Oh, this is stupid," Steelbeak scoffed. "And completely pointless. I was going to give you a choice, Webbigail, but it looks like you'd pick the wrong side. Eggheads...seize them."

Gosalyn sure hoped her father had brought enough smoke pellets. This could get nasty. Of course, they could depend on Steelbeak not to get his hands dirty; would Webby fight for them or against them? Just because she'd taken a step closer to them didn't necessarily mean she'd chosen them. But Gosalyn hoped it had. Webby needed a family.

* * *

Donald had blundered through all of the traps leading to their cell. They hadn't encountered much resistance coming down here, which meant all of the lackeys must've gone after Webby. While Scrooge was grateful that Gizmoduck had disabled the security and extracted the boys without much difficulty, he worried about Mrs. Beakley and the others. Darkwing Duck had a way of coming out on top, but with Gosalyn as a liability and who knew what was running through Webbigail's head, he couldn't tell what might happen.

He chivvied the boys along to the rendezvous point. He would stow them aboard the waiting plane and Launchpad would look after them while he collected the others. Huey was fanboying over Gizmoduck and Louie was keeping an eye out for any traps they might have missed. Dewey, however, appeared too distracted by something else.

"Is Webby going to be okay?" he blurted.

"I don't know, lad," Scrooge said softly. They reached an intersection and steel bars slammed down in front of them. They whirled around and lasers cut off their egress to the rear. Flames leaped out at them from above and they inched closer to each other, as it appeared that the bars and lasers were encroaching on their space.

"I should've known this was too easy," Scrooge muttered.

"Aw, phooey," Donald muttered.


	5. Chapter 5

All hell broke loose. She had no idea how many pellets Darkwing had in his gun, but the air soon filled with the acrid scent of gas. Gosalyn grabbed Webby just as Darkwing fired, figuring that Steelbeak's first move would be to isolate his daughter. She could feel Webby's pulse jump beneath her finger and the girl drew a deep, shuddering breath. They had to find a safe place, away from the Eggheads, until the battle was over. She had no doubt that Webby could handle herself-she'd handled herself against Black Heron, apparently-but after what she'd done earlier, Webby might freeze at a critical moment. Gosalyn didn't intend to find out the hard way.

Remembering where the ventilation shaft was, she sprang for it and caught it with her fingertips. A hand yanked her and Webby back down and Webby kicked out, connecting and prompting a pained howl. She then scrambled into the shaft and helped Gosalyn inside. Their hideout wouldn't last forever. Once the smoke cleared, the Eggheads and Steelbeak would be searching for them, but for now, it ought to suffice.

If push came to shove, could Webby fight her father? Gosalyn didn't know. She couldn't fight Darkwing, but Darkwing was in many ways more her father than Steelbeak could possibly be. Gosalyn's finger brushed against the welt on Webby's cheek and Webby flinched back, raising one of her knives to fend her off. Gosalyn backed up and almost fell out of the shaft. She cursed inwardly.

"Calm down," Gosalyn said, holding her hands up in a defensive gesture. "I'm not going to attack you. We're on the same side, remember?"

From below, the fighting grew more intense and the gas was dissipating. Unlike the adults, Gosalyn didn't have an earpiece telling her where to go and she wished she knew how to make a swift exit, meet up with Scrooge McDuck, Donald, and the triplets, and get out of here. Of course, she didn't want to leave Darkwing behind either, though her father was adroit at getting himself out of sticky situations.

Someone aimed at the ventilation shaft and bullets peppered the metal. Shrieking, Gosalyn yanked Webby out and they landed, Gosalyn on her knees and Webby on her feet, back on the floor. Most of the Eggheads, Gosalyn saw, were incapacitated. Between Agent 22 and Darkwing Duck, they'd run their share of foul luck. (Or was it "FOWL" luck? Heh).

This left Steelbeak and a couple of henchmen. Darkwing, however, was out of gas pellets and he and Mrs. Beakley were backed up together, facing their opponents.

"You know, this doesn't have to end this way," Steelbeak said, cocking a gun at the duo. "If you just walk away, I don't have to hurt either of you. But Webbigail stays. She's mine."

"If you think for one second that I'm going to let you keep my granddaughter, especially after finding out that you've allowed her to be physically abused, you are insane," Mrs. Beakley spat. "You never should have touched her."

"And if you think I'm going to let you leave here alive…" Steelbeak scoffed.

They weren't paying any attention to the kids. Webby seemed to be sizing up the situation and she nodded at Gosalyn, who nodded back. Between the two of them, they disabled the remaining henchmen and were rounding on Steelbeak when he cleared his throat and waved the gun at them instead. For his efforts, since he was about to reprimand them (or so Gosalyn assumed), Mrs. Beakley kicked him in the head. Steelbeak stumbled backward and retreated only for Mrs. Beakley to pursue him. Gosalyn got a good look at her face and almost didn't blame Steelbeak for fleeing. Holy shit, she did not want Mrs. Beakley looking at her like she wanted to rip his beak off and dismember him.

"If you think I'm going to let you leave here alive…" Mrs. Beakley snarled. Steelbeak had lost the gun when she'd kicked him and when he bent to retrieve it, Darkwing Duck kicked it down the hall.

"Oops," Darkwing said with a malicious grin. "How did that happen?"

"Agent 22!" Scrooge's disembodied voice called through her earpiece. "We're having a little difficulty here!"

"Later," she snarled and kneed Steelbeak in the groin. She then spun him around, slammed him into the wall, and proceeded to go to town on him. Gosalyn whooped and then looked over at Webby, who had a blank look on her face.

"Not later, now, Beakley!" Scrooge snapped.

"I'm not done yet!" Mrs. Beakley countered.

"Curse me kilts, woman, when I tell you I want you, I want you to stop what you're doing and get over here! We have a situation!"

"So do I!"

"We're about to be zapped into oblivion! What the blazes could be more important than that?" Scrooge cried.

"Oh, fine," Mrs. Beakley said, sighing. "Knock him out and drag him along, Darkwing. I'm not finished with him."

Taking up the lead, Mrs. Beakley glanced back behind her only to ensure that the girls and Darkwing were following before striding up the hall. Webby looked shaken, gazing at her father as Darkwing dragged him. He was too heavy for the vigilante to lift and Webby's beak opened and then shut. Gosalyn could almost understand. As much as Steelbeak was an asshole and he'd kidnapped her, brainwashed her, and subjected her to so much pain, he was still her father. Seeing him in that state had to be distressing. On the other hand, they couldn't exactly let him go.

"Stop it," Webby said and then when Mrs. Beakley showed no signs of slowing, let alone halting, she repeated herself louder. "Stop it. I know you're upset with him. Just tie him up and leave him somewhere. We can find him later."

"If his henchmen don't find him first," Mrs. Beakley said archly, gazing at her granddaughter. "Webbigail, this man kidnapped you, allowed Black Heron to abuse you, and doubtlessly mistreated you himself. He may be your father, but that doesn't mean very much."

"I know him better than I know you," Webby responded and hurt flashed across Mrs. Beakley's face. Gosalyn winced.

"I don't remember you or McDuck Manor at all," Webby added.

The fight seemed to drain out of Mrs. Beakley and she glanced back at Steelbeak. Darkwing looked at him too and the adults had a silent conversation. Mrs. Beakley finally shook her head and Darkwing frowned, but looked like he was deferring to her. That was a first. Darkwing hated deferring to anyone.

"We can't risk leaving him here," Mrs. Beakley said. She hefted Steelbeak over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "But we don't have to drag him all over, either."

They continued on and the tension mounted between Webby and her grandmother. Gosalyn tried to see things from Webby's point of view. Yes, Steelbeak was a terrible person. Yes, he'd done heinous things. But he was still Webby's father. And he couldn't have been all bad to her, could he? There had to be a side Webby saw that no one else did.

They traveled in silence and stumbled upon Scrooge McDuck, Gizmoduck, and the boys. Gizmoduck was bent over them and fending off a flamethrower that had scorched his metal body. Mrs. Beakley dumped Steelbeak on the floor and disabled the trap with two flicks of hairpins that doubled as hand grenades. Grateful, the males left their trap and then surveyed the scene.

"Hey," Dewey said to Webby. "You okay?'

Webby's gaze was elsewhere. She knelt by Steelbeak's side and murmured something Gosalyn couldn't quite make out. His eyelids slid open and Darkwing hastily tied the villain up before he got any ideas. Webby seemed not to notice.

"You still haven't made up your mind, have you?" Steelbeak said and smirked. "Attagirl. Just remember who raised you."

"Just remember who brought you here in the first place," Mrs. Beakley spat. "He is not a true parental figure."

"Feh, don't listen to her," Steelbeak said. Webby gazed into his eyes and Gosalyn yanked her back. She didn't know what was going on, but it didn't sound good to her. They didn't need Webby to backslide.

"You only see her as a prize to be won, just like you saw Wren," Mrs. Beakley snapped.

Webby's gaze flitted back and forth between the two arguing adults.

"Curse me kilts, we don't have time for this," Scrooge snapped. "Webbigail, you're with us."

"No," Webby said. "I don't know. I don't-"

She hugged herself and rocked back and forth. Steelbeak straightened up as best he could, considering he was tied up and inched closer to her. Gosalyn hissed, putting a hand on Webby's shoulder. Webby shook it off with a shudder.

"Webby," Mrs. Beakley said. "You can't honestly say you want to stay here."

"I belong here. I killed Black Heron. Steelbeak is my father. I belong here," Webby said.

Steelbeak smiled cruelly. "See? Like father, like daughter."

"Your mother was a SHUSH agent. I am a SHUSH agent. You do not belong here," Mrs. Beakley said, sounding exasperated. "We can have this discussion aboard the Sunchaser, but we are not having it here, not now. We are not waiting for reinforcements to come."

Steelbeak's eyes lit up and Gosalyn stifled a groan. She'd inadvertently given Steelbeak an idea-stall. All he needed to do was ensure Webby remained conflicted for long enough for backup. Then all hell would break loose.

"Mom was a SHUSH agent?" Webby asked and Steelbeak huffed. Clearly, this was not a conversation he wanted to have. He wanted Webby unsteady and discussing her mother, Gosalyn guessed, put him in the wrong.

"She wasn't very good at her job," Steelbeak said. "Or else I'm just too debonair to resist. Your mom fell for me and the rest is history."

"She didn't fall for you," Mrs. Beakley said and her eyes flashed. "You took advantage of her."

"Enough!" Scrooge snapped. "The whole lot of you, we're making it back to the plane now. You can discuss this while we're heading back to Duckburg, but not now. We are not hashing it out now."

Webby balled her fists and glanced around her. FOWL HQ was her home, regardless of how she'd happened here. Gosalyn could tell she was reluctant to leave.

"Hey, what happened between me and your mom is between us, okay?" Steelbeak said and Gosalyn could feel him putting on the charm. It made her sick.

"But I got you out of the bargain, so it wasn't so bad, was it?" he continued.

"Webby," Huey said. "He's stalling and manipulating you. That's what Steelbeak does."

"I know he's manipulating me," Webby said in a small voice. She grimaced, squeezing her eyes shut and balling her fists tighter. If she'd had nails, they would have dug into her palms, perhaps until they bled. She drew a shaky breath.

"Fine. We can discuss it on the plane," she said. The conviction she injected into her voice faltered, however, when she added, "All of us." 

* * *

Snow pelted Webby's face and it was the first time in her life she'd experienced it. She wasn't dressed for the weather, either, with only a black turtleneck and black pants. She possessed no coats since no one wanted her to go outside. Shivering, she hugged herself for warmth. The boys came up behind her and huddled around her; none of them were dressed for a snowstorm.

She permitted their closeness, although it set her further on edge. Behind her, Darkwing Duck dragged Steelbeak through the snow. Steelbeak was conscious and muttering imprecations against the vigilante, who was ignoring him. Webby cast a glance back and hated the ambivalence she felt. On the one hand, she felt bad for him, because he was her father and he'd raised her these last six years. On the other, he'd kidnapped her from her rightful family.

They made it back to the plane without incident, seeing as no one dared make a move against the SHUSH agents while they used Steelbeak as a bargaining chip. They ascended the Sunchaser, a large orange plane, and Webby immediately scanned the area. She spied crates in the cargo bay and, while the boys sought out a heater, she snuck into a corner where she could overlook everything without being involved. Her hand brushed against her hip; they'd had time to return to her room so she could dress in layers, which meant she'd been able to retrieve her missing dagger. Their presence comforted her slightly.

She shivered again; at least the plane hadn't been far from the lair. Trussed up and thrown into a crate himself, Steelbeak stared back at her. He said nothing, but she could feel the weight of his disappointment on her shoulders. Killing Black Heron had earned her praise. Possibly turning against FOWL had earned his disapproval. But the boys...and Gosalyn...not to mention her grandmother…

Wrenching her gaze away, she backed up, reluctant to take her eyes off him. Mrs. Beakley had gagged him, which was probably a blessing in disguise. The whole affair turned her stomach and when she pivoted, she spied Gosalyn and the boys heading for her. She held her ground, though her hands immediately went toward her daggers again.

"Hey, chill," Gosalyn said. "We're not the enemy."

She had no idea what to say to children her age. She'd been running on hysteria before and now that she had tamped down on her emotions, she couldn't figure out how to continue a conversation or whether she wanted to. They weren't enemies, right? So, what did that make them, exactly? And they claimed they weren't enemies, but SHUSH and FOWL were opponents.

"How did you get that welt on your cheek?" Dewey asked.

"Black Heron," she said and then shrugged. "It doesn't matter."

Especially since Black Heron was out of the picture now.

"Why did she whip you?" Huey asked, frowning.

"I didn't move fast enough. It was my fault," she said, shaking her head. "That's how I got the laceration on my arm, too. But, like I said, my fault for getting between her and something she wanted."

"Did that happen often?" Gosalyn asked.

Webby shrugged. "You learn to move faster and be better."

Mrs. Beakley joined them and Webby backed up again, intimidated and on guard against her grandmother. Agent 22. Steelbeak sneered and she ignored him. She didn't dare take her eyes off 22.

"Webby, we need to talk," Mrs. Beakley said. "About what happens now, among other things."

In truth, she wasn't sure why she'd agreed to go with them, but it was safer than staying in FOWL HQ without Steelbeak. Steelbeak was the only thing protecting her from the villains' wrath. She wasn't strong enough to stand on her own, not yet.

"You're coming back with us to McDuck Manor," Mrs. Beakley said. "You used to live there...even if you don't remember it."

"And Steelbeak?" Webby asked, concealing the tremor in her voice.

"He's going to jail," Mrs. Beakley said and her face shuttered. "I'm your legal guardian, not him. He has no rights to you."

Webby found herself balling her fists. Everything Steelbeak had told her about 22 reverberated through her mind and she glanced back at her father. Steelbeak gazed back at her with a predatory smile. She winced.

"This is going to be difficult for you," she said. "I understand that. We'll do the best we can. I know you might not be happy with the situation as it stands right now, but I promise that it will be much better than what you've known before."

Unable to suppress the urge, 22 rushed forward to hug her and Webby, back against the wall, jumped away. The pain on her grandmother's face jabbed at Webby, but she ignored it. At the moment, she had no emotional attachment to this woman beyond a slight nagging guilt. Guilt didn't take you very far in FOWL.

"Webby, please…" Mrs. Beakley pleaded and reached out to her. "I won't hurt you. You have to trust me."

"No, I don't," Webby said and kept her hands on her hips. "I don't have to trust any of you."

Mrs. Beakley's face went blank and Gosalyn scowled.

"He lost and he's still winning," Gosalyn complained. "You're letting him win, Webby. You're letting him have power over you."

Webby scowled back. She knew what she was doing, didn't she? And how was she supposed to trust people she'd just met based on what they told her? That seemed like a bit too much to ask.

"Give her a break, Beakley," Scrooge called and Webby looked up toward the cockpit. "You can't rush things."

"No," Mrs. Beakley said, though a frown marred her features. "I suppose not."

"This is going to be one long flight," Louie muttered. 

* * *

Exhaustion swept her and though she tried to resist it, she felt her limbs dragged down by fatigue. She didn't want to fall asleep here; she didn't trust anyone and part of her was afraid Steelbeak might break out of his bonds and hijack the plane. Did she want him to do that? Did she want him to return to FOWL HQ? It was all she knew; they were heading into the unknown. That scared her, though she wanted to put up a good front.

She was also tired from not sleeping well after having killed Black Heron the day before. Curled up in a crate, she held her knife before her in a defensive gesture. If anyone tried to get the drop on her, they were in for an unwelcome surprise. That was, assuming she wasn't too tired to defend herself.

In FOWL, if she was too tired to defend herself, she was fair game. She willed strength into her limbs, but there was nothing left to give. She was drained to the dregs.

"You might want to try getting some rest, kid," Darkwing called and ducked his head into her crate. She hissed, readying the knife to throw it, and he raised his eyebrows at her.

"I'm not gonna hurt you," he said. "I can see you're tired. Everyone's tired. Why don't you take a nap? No one's going to attack you. I promise. You're safe here, Webby."

Her addled mind struggled to conceive the concept of security. She gazed at him with dull eyes and he squeezed his way into her crate. It wasn't all that large and he stopped halfway through before he squished her up against the sides.

"I know you've been through a lot," he said softly. "And I know you're afraid to trust anyone here because you see us all as enemies. We're not. I swear, kid, we're the good guys. And if you keep fighting sleep, you're gonna end up passing out. Nothing is going to happen to you. I promise on my life."

Webby raised her eyebrows back at him and lowered her knife so that it was against her side. Darkwing frowned.

"Maybe don't sleep with those…" he said. "You don't need to hurt yourself in your sleep."

Webby gave him a dirty look and he grimaced. "You know what? Never mind, kiddo. You do whatever makes you feel better."

She didn't want to sleep, not if it meant lowering her guard, but maybe a few minutes wouldn't hurt. Closing her eyes, she curled up in a ball. Darkwing sighed and the last thing she heard was, "Ah, poor kid." 

* * *

"You found her?" Mrs. Beakley asked and Darkwing nodded.

"She's in with the snacks near the back of the plane," he answered. "She's rattled still. Pulled a knife on me."

Mrs. Beakley glowered at Steelbeak. He had a lot to answer for. Wishing she could pummel him into oblivion, she turned on her heel, climbed down the ladder, and sought out Webby. She found her granddaughter curled up where Darkwing had said and crying softly in her sleep. Unfortunately, there was no way she could get into the crate without rousing her. Her heart broke seeing her misery.

"She doesn't trust us," Mrs. Beakley said as Scrooge came up from behind her. "And she's afraid to trust anyone else. What a horrible situation."

"Aye," Scrooge said, looking in on her. "She used to be such a carefree scamp, wasn't she?"

"We've gone this far and finally found her and I can't even touch her…" Mrs. Beakley whispered. "She's so close and yet she's worlds away."

"Don't give up hope, 22," he said. "It'll all work out in the end."

Mrs. Beakley scowled. Either it worked out or she was dropping Steelbeak out of the airlock.


	6. Chapter 6

Webby awoke with a crick in her neck and someone watching her. Hissing, angry at herself for letting this person get so close, she wielded Stabby and the person backed off, holding their hands up defensively. It took a minute for her to realize her opponent was a child, like her, and a girl to boot. Quiverwing. Nonetheless, Webby's heart didn't stop racing. She lowered the knife and Gosalyn inched a little closer, but out of arm's reach.

"You're safe," Gosalyn said. "You're on the Sunchaser and we're heading back to Duckburg. You remember what happened, don't you?"

At that, Webby jumped to her feet and dashed out; Gosalyn moved aside to make room. Webby scanned the cargo hold and discovered Steelbeak on his side and sleeping a couple of crates away. Her chest was tight, though something loosened seeing him there. He was the only familiar person in an unfamiliar and frankly terrifying scenario. Yes, they were supposed to be her saviors, but right now, all she felt like was that they were removing her from the place she'd called, albeit reluctantly, home.

"He's going to jail," Gosalyn said, following Webby's gaze. "He won't be able to touch you again."

"I never said I wanted to go to Duckburg," Webby said. Steelbeak's eyes opened and he studied his daughter. The gag remained in place and Webby quivered, struck by a sudden desire to remove it. However, Huey had had a point earlier. Anything her father said was liable to manipulation at best. At worst, it'd be wholly self-serving demands. Nonetheless, her chest ached to see her father trussed up like a pig for the slaughter.

"Okay, I know this wasn't your idea," Gosalyn said, nudging Webby back and away from Steelbeak's gaze. Webby flinched at the sudden touch and, whereas before Gosalyn might have backed off, she kept her hand on Webby's hand and squeezed. Webby's heart thudded.

"And I know you're not happy about it. But Duckburg will be a lot better for you than staying with FOWL. You might not see it for a while, but it will be," she promised.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spied more figures coming toward her. They were diminutive, suggesting children, and she tensed, half expecting a fight before the figures resolved into the triplets. She was still on guard, although she knew logically she had little to fear from the boys. How good could they possibly be, if they'd gotten themselves kidnapped and needed her help? And they had seemed innocuous…

"Hey, are you okay?" Huey asked. They stopped right before her and Gosalyn.

"Why wouldn't I be?" she shot back, unable to keep the impatience out of her tone. "Nothing happened. I'm fine."

"You were whimpering in your sleep," Dewey said and Webby cursed.

"You weren't supposed to hear that," she muttered and punched her thigh. She was supposed to have gotten better at suppressing noises while asleep. Black Heron would never let her hear the end of it. Or, rather, she wouldn't have, if Webby hadn't killed her. Webby's stomach flip-flopped.

"You're allowed to have nightmares," Gosalyn said. "You're just a kid like us."

Webby shook her head. "I'm a FOWL operative in training. I'm better than a normal kid."

From beyond the gag, Steelbeak chuckled and she froze. The others bristled, Gosalyn going so far as to step protectively in front of her. Webby's feathers stood on end.

"What?" she said and Dewey ripped the gag out of Steelbeak's mouth over his brothers' strenuous objections.

"That's my girl," Steelbeak said with a smirk. "Give 'em hell, Webbigail. You're mine, not a SHUSH wimp."

"You took advantage of her mother, kidnapped her, and brainwashed her," Gosalyn said, surprisingly heated. "She's not yours. And yes, Darkwing told me all about what happened."

She folded her arms across her chest. "She's a kid like me. She's the same age as me too. Since when do you care about kids?"

"I care when they have potential," Steelbeak sneered. Webby wasn't certain whether to be flattered or insulted. Gosalyn's raised voice was gathering attention, too, and she saw her grandmother staring down at them. Within seconds, she was heading down the ladder to confront them. Webby's chest had been tight before. Now it felt like a boa constrictor had her in its grasp.

"Who undid his gag?" Mrs. Beakley demanded and Dewey smiled sheepishly.

"And you are better than a normal kid, Webby," Steelbeak said, ignoring Agent 22. "The nightmares are disappointing. I thought you were past that."

"She. Is. Eleven.," Mrs. Beakley spat and puffed up in indignation. "And given the things that I believe you've put her through, she has endured far more than any child should."

"Age has nothing to do with it," Steelbeak said. He smirked at Webby. "I bet she'll do whatever I want, too. You don't want your old man to go to jail, do you? It's not my fault your grandmother couldn't keep an eye on you."

Mrs. Beakley looked capable of murder. Scrooge slid down the ladder after her, as did Darkwing. The two stood behind her, at least until Darkwing surged forward and jammed the gag so far down Steelbeak's throat that he choked on it. He only relented when Webby stared at him in alarm and pulled it out enough for the villain to breathe, but only that much.

"Stand down, 22," Scrooge advised. "He's baiting you."

Several expressions flitted across Mrs. Beakley's face before settling on stoicism. She was restraining herself, but Webby could feel the violence in her stance. What had happened back at HQ was nothing compared to what she really wanted to do to him. The last time she'd seen such coiled rage, it'd been Black Heron and Webby unconsciously shifted her stance, ready for a fight. That was enough to bring Mrs. Beakley up short and she blinked, relaxing minutely.

"Webby…" Mrs. Beakley entreated. Webby had her hands on her knives again and brought them out, twirling them about. The boys gave her a wide berth, though Gosalyn remained close. Of the children, only Gosalyn seemed to understand her. It made her feel an odd sort of kinship with the redheaded girl.

"Okay, Webby, put the knives down," Louie said softly. "No one wants you to toss knives on a moving plane, especially with how Launchpad pilots."

While she stopped twirling the knives, she continued to regard her grandmother critically. Yes, she knew Steelbeak was a terrible father. And in the back of her mind, she acknowledged what Gosalyn and Huey had said was true. The foul, rapacious, arrogant man had brainwashed her. Her hands trembled and she shoved the knives back into their sheaths, which prompted a sigh of relief. Why was she defending Steelbeak? It wasn't like she hadn't spent most of her life wishing she'd never been born or, at least, that she'd been elsewhere. She'd cast McDuck Manor and her grandmother out of her mind once she had realized she'd never see them again and had suppressed memories of both. That didn't mean that, somewhere in the back of her head, she hadn't realized that none of her upbringing was even close to normal.

Drawing a deep breath that was startlingly close to a sob, Webby steadied herself against the crate. She couldn't meet her grandmother's gaze, which was alternatively stony when she regarded Steelbeak and heartbreaking when she looked at her.

"I lied, before," Webby whispered. The tension in the airplane was so thick she could practically taste it. "I remember you. A little."

But not enough to make any real difference. Feeling shaky, she turned her back on them and glanced around for a place to hide. Unfortunately, the ship was not designed with that in mind. She was shaking again; this was the first time in her memory that she was aboard a vessel and not confined. Her heart was in her throat.

"Hey," Gosalyn said, putting a hand on her shoulder. Webby had heard her coming, so she didn't flinch this time. "Wanna talk?"

"Webbigail," Scrooge said and, surprised, she turned to look at him. "Your grandmother and I have been searching for a long time for you. Whatever that puffed up, pugnacious, puerile pinhead told you isn't true. He's trying to get you to free him so he can resume his old tricks. You cannae believe a word he says."

This was too much. She could feel the pressure mounting and her chest grew tighter and tighter. Her breaths were growing short and her head spun. Sensing trouble, Gosalyn, and the boys guided her to a bench. She didn't shrug them off, though she wished they'd go away. She needed to be alone right now. Hugging her knees to her chest, she rocked back and forth.

It was all well and good for one side to claim the other was lying, but who was she supposed to believe? The headache she'd felt earlier, when she'd encountered the boys, had returned and with it the fractured memories she'd worked so hard to bury. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes and she rocked back and forth. She was vaguely aware of Dewey sitting beside her and putting a hat on her head. The hat's significance was lost on her.

"Hey," he said softly. "I got this hat at Mount Pelagrosso. I was the Chosen One. Now you can be the Chosen One. But, not, you know, forever, because I like this hat."

This might've been intended to distract her. It didn't work. Webby's hysteria reached a fever pitch.

"Center yourself," Huey said and she glanced at him. He sat on Dewey's other side. "Find five things in the room and count them. Look at us. You're going to be okay, Webby. Five things you can see. Four things you can hear. Three things you can feel. Two things you can smell. And one thing you can, well, since you're not licking the ship, one thing you can taste without licking metal."

It sounded preposterous and overwhelming, but she did as Huey instructed. As she did so, the knots loosened in her chest and tears fell instead. She wanted to fling herself into the nearby lockers, though she sensed they wouldn't be large enough to accommodate her. The need to hide was powerful and before she could act on it, Mrs. Beakley hugged her.

Webby froze. She couldn't recall the last time someone had hugged her without an agenda. Very slowly, her whole body quivering, she hugged her back. Huey moved to her other side and rubbed her back while Dewey rambled about some adventure or another the boys had gone on. Her fists balled in her grandmother's dress.

"You know, I did learn something from parenting books, regardless of how much of a wild child your mother was," Mrs. Beakley said softly. "Never be the first to let go of a hug. You never know how much the other person needs it."

She kept her face hidden from the others. Steelbeak would be so disappointed in her. She couldn't satisfy both her grandmother and him. She drew a deep, bracing breath and released Agent 22. Webby was better than this. Stronger than this. She swallowed back her sobs and wiped her face. FOWL agents didn't cry. She wouldn't either.

* * *

The novelty of having a room with a door that locked was not lost on Webby. She'd declined the grand tour in favor of sequestering herself in her room. Considering that she'd suppressed her emotions up through the end of the plane trip and back to Duckburg, she thought she'd done an admirable job of holding herself up. Now that she was in private, however, she curled into a ball on the too small bed and hugged her knees.

The adults had wasted no time taking Steelbeak to a secure facility to await sentencing. This was the first time in her life that she'd been alone without the threat of FOWL coming in. It felt surreal; guilt swamped her for liking it. Though she knew it was irrational, she felt like she'd brought this upon FOWL by killing Black Heron. That if Black Heron had been there, Steelbeak would have escaped and she'd be back at FOWL HQ. Not that that would've necessarily been a good thing.

She'd pulled her Quacker Patch doll out from under her bed; she was surprised she remembered that she had it, let alone where she'd stashed it. After shaking out the dust, she hugged it to her and cried quietly. It was easier to cry silently when she was awake. Crying in her sleep noiselessly was not a skill she had mastered yet. (Though if the boys were to be believed, she didn't have anything to be ashamed of. She didn't believe them).

Gosalyn had gone off with Darkwing Duck back to St. Canard and a doctor was looking after the boys. Scrooge and Mrs. Beakley had to issue a report to SHUSH, which left her as the only one in the house, aside from the ghost butler. She wasn't counting him.

Being unfamiliar with the security system here, she couldn't tell whether she'd be able to escape without sounding an alarm. Now that she'd settled down again, the house felt confining in a way HQ hadn't. She felt like everyone's expectations were crushing her and she needed to get out. Her door locked from the inside, which was a start, but she couldn't tell if the house would report her leaving.

What was the worst that could happen if she got caught? They didn't strike her as the type to use corporal punishment, so she'd probably get off with a severe warning. Considering what she'd endured, she didn't consider the lecture much of a deterrent. Sliding off the bed and discarding the toy, she unlocked the door and slipped out into the hallway.

Though she had declined the tour, she had memorized exit routes and she noted that her bedroom window was located in one of McDuck Manor's towers; it had a trellis that she could use to scale down onto the ground. Opening the window triggered nothing, so she prepared herself and descended, hitting the soft grass with a small smile.

Climbing the gates proved no challenge, either, though she missed her grapple hook. For good reason, Steelbeak never let her carry it around with her and took it back after every training session. She wasn't sure where she could procure another one, though she'd keep her eye open.

Once she was out into the street, she booked it, not sure where she was going other than "away". Not knowing Duckburg, she assumed she could nonetheless handle herself. Any criminals here would be small fry compared to FOWL. With her knives on her hips, she drew stares that she countered with glowers. Anyone who met her eyes scurried away and she smirked. Their unease was a balm to her nerves.

She found herself near an old abandoned theatre. Frowning, uncertain what had drawn her here, she settled on the beach nearby. There was something soothing about the waves and she watched as a couple of bottles floated by. Curious, Webby plucked one up, scanned the note, and then noted another bottle striking her feet. She turned around to discover a teenage girl sitting against one of the theatre's pillars and scribbling on a piece of paper that she then put inside a bottle.

The girl looked up when she felt Webby's gaze upon her.

"Woah, look at you, all dangerous with those knives," she said, smiling at her. "Gonna go all out against the pirates that stole my ship?"

"Wait, what?" Webby said and then glanced down at the note she'd crumpled in her hand. "No. Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"I might ask you the same thing," the girl snorted. "I live here, pink. I'm Lena."

"Webby…" Webby said cautiously, joining the girl on the stage near the pillar. She kept her hands on her knives and Lena eyed her curiously. She was the first person Webby had met who wasn't intimidated by her weaponry. Webby wasn't sure how she felt about that.

"Do you know even know how to handle those?" Lena asked, arching her eyebrows. In response, Webby whirled, grabbing Lena by the throat and placing the blade against it. As she moved, Lena's shadow did too, forming a woman. An amulet fell out from underneath Lena's shirt and Webby and Lena stared at each other. Webby stepped back, releasing the older girl.

"That answer your question?" Webby said.

"That was a little closer to death than I'd like," Lena muttered. She appraised Webby anew. "What are you, some kind of trained spy?"

"Something like that," Webby agreed. Lena's shadow had returned to normal and Webby wondered whether she'd imagined it hissing at her. Lena stuffed the amulet back inside her shirt.

"So, your parents just let you walk around with knives?"

"My dad bought them for me," she said. "And Granny hasn't taken them away yet...but then again, I ran away from the house."

She shrugged. "I don't know why I told you that. Or why I'm still talking."

This girl was making her nervous and she didn't know why. She sensed the power within her and that amulet Lena had concealed.

"You ran away from home?"

"It's not really home. Nowhere is."

"Uh huh." Lena studied her. "Wanna go do something fun?"

"Like what?" Webby asked.

"Oh, I don't know if you'd go for it. I mean, you've already got the whole badass kid thing down. These people might be out of your league…" Lena said with a sly smile.

"No one's out of my league."

"Then let's go."

Lena jumped to her feet and offered Webby a hand. Webby didn't take it and Lena continued to study her. She frowned.

"You could always hang out around here once we're done," Lena said and shrugged. "It's way too quiet anyway."

"Maybe," Webby said. Her stomach felt like it'd erupted into butterflies, especially when Lena grabbed her hand.

"Let's go," Lena repeated and tugged Webby along. "We've got a party to crash."


	7. Chapter 7

Though she knew nothing about the crime scene in Duckburg, Webby nonetheless knew miscreants when she saw them. The Beagle Boys fit the bill, though they were nowhere in the same tier of crime as Steelbeak or Black Heron. If anything, they were aspiring criminals, because they were far too stupid to work under FOWL. Wearing knives had actually helped them blend in; she wondered what Lena's game was, to crash a Beagle Boy party. Lena was running around looking for people to prank and Webby edged closer to a conversation that Burger Beagle and Big Time were having.

"I'm telling you, next time we catch the Duck brats, we kill them first and then ransom them," Big Time scoffed. Webby prickled, her feathers standing on end. If she'd been a cat, her fur would've puffed up. There was no way they were talking about the Duck triplets-Huey, Dewey, and Louie. If they were, they'd be sorry.

"Don't you think Scrooge would be really pissed off at us?" Burger Beagle responded and Big Time sneered.

"Worry about it later. He won't pay the ransom anyway, so we might as well be done with the Duck brats," he rejoined.

"You're not touching them," Webby spat. She was surprised by the rage stirring in her chest at the thought of someone hurting them. She barely knew them; where was this coming from? It wasn't like she owed them anything, except, well, maybe she did. If it hadn't been for them, she'd still be in FOWL HQ. They'd brought her back to Duckburg, even if she wasn't sure whether that was a mixed blessing at best.

"And who are you to tell us anything?" Big Time retorted. "Who are you, anyway? You look like a Duck brat, but I'd know if they had a sister."

"They don't," Webby said flatly. "But they do now."

She raised Stabby threateningly and conversation died. Lena, in the middle of causing one of the clowns to trip over their own two feet, looked up at her. Ma Beagle was watching Webby with a predatory gaze that Webby didn't much like. She didn't scare her, but she was wary.

"Who are you to threaten my son?" Ma Beagle snapped.

"She didn't come alone," another Beagle Boy said and shoved Lena out and into the spotlight that was mounted onto the top of the trailer, which had swiveled to illuminate both girls. Lena looked at Webby quizzically; Webby caught it out of the corner of her eye, but her attention was dominated by Ma Beagle.

"He's threatening people I care about," Webby said, uncertain why her heart had begun thumping in her chest. Perhaps it had something to do with walking into a hornet's nest. She could handle herself in a fair fight and even an unfair one, but not one against so many enemies. She'd never fought this many people before. Perhaps she shouldn't have spoken up.

Ma Beagle examined her and snarled at her sons, "Bring her up here."

Webby whirled, unwilling to let anyone touch her, and fought off the first three that approached her. Someone chucked a throwing star at her, which she dodged. She couldn't keep track of everyone at once, however, and soon found herself tackled to the ground. Snarling like an angry cat, she reached for her knives. Her captor pinned her arms behind her back and she shoved her head back to slam into their nose. They yelped in pain, releasing her, and she spun about, searching for Lena. Unfortunately, Lena didn't have Webby's training. Within a minute, the Beagle Boys had captured the older teenager. With Webby, however, they were hesitant to approach. It looked like she'd broken her captor's nose.

"Little hellion," Ma Beagle commented. From her, it wasn't a compliment. "How about this. Either you surrender to me or I throw your little friend off the dock with weights attached and we'll see if she floats."

Reluctantly, Webby allowed the Beagle Boys to seize her. Lena shot her an apologetic look. Oddly, Webby wasn't upset with her. Even though this had been Lena's idea in the first place, she didn't hold her accountable for this. Villains were villains the world over. You couldn't predict them. Sometimes the best thing to do was to stay out of their way.

"Now…" Ma Beagle sized her up. "What do you think we ought to do to these hooligans?"

"Throw 'em in the sea anyway!" One of the Beagle Boys called. Webby's gaze met Lena's and they proceeded to ignore the suggestions. Lena curbstomped on her captor's feet at the same time that Webby kneed hers in the groin, slammed both fists onto his head, and then roundhouse kicked him into Ma Beagle. She bolted, only waiting for a second to ensure Lena was following her before they fled the scrapyard.

Streets blurred by as the girls ran until, after a lengthy race, Webby was fairly certain she'd lost them. Lena panted, hands on her knees, as they sat in the playground. Lena's little pink striped lock was fluttering up and down in the wind and Webby had a strong urge to flick it. She sat on her hands.

"You got some moves," Lena said, smiling after she'd caught her breath.

Webby clamped her beak down on telling Lena she was cute. It was hard, but at least she'd gotten better at not blurting things out. That was another lesson beaten into her. The thought of Black Heron erased what little joy she'd had and she scowled, looking away from her companion.

"Woah, woah. What's with the dark brooding hero, Batman?" she teased.

"Nothing," Webby said. Somehow, it didn't seem right to tell someone she'd just met that she'd killed someone. Everyone kept claiming it was self-defense, but there was a small part of Webby that was glad she'd done it. That kept replaying the moment the garotte had bitten into Black Heron's neck and the blood had spurted everywhere.

"No, seriously. You're kinda dark for a kid. I respect that."

"Good," she bit out and glanced over the town from atop the slide they rested upon. Duckburg was a lot bigger than she'd thought it was.

"So…bad past?"

She was prying without prying, which Webby respected. She glanced over at the other girl and her heart skipped a few beats again. Her beak tightened. Damn it, she desired to tell Lena how cute she was and how her hair fell in her face just right and the way her eyes sparkled made Webby's stomach erupt into butterflies. She caught herself before she leaned forward. What was she doing?

Honestly. The first few people to show any sort of decency toward her and she was developing unhealthy attachments to all of them. What did that say about her mental state?

"I was kidnapped when I was five and raised by my evil father," Webby said flatly, refusing to expound any further.

"I hear you. I have an evil aunt and man, she's always riding me."

"Really?" Webby turned to regard Lena. She hated the hope that sparked in her chest and self-loathing quickly squashed it.

"Yeah. It's a total pain."

They were silent for a minute and she felt Lena appraising her.

"What?" she asked. She'd never been alone with another girl close to her age before, not that she could remember. Was this weird jittery feeling normal? Who was she to tell what was normal and what wasn't, anyway?

Lena opened her beak and then shut it, shaking her head.

"What is it?" Webby asked, softer this time.

"You never really got the chance to be a kid, either, did you?"

"Being a kid is overrated," Webby scoffed. She fell onto her back and stared up at the stars. Having spent all her life in FOWL HQ, she'd never seen them before. The night sky was bright and the stars shone down on them.

There seemed to be something else Lena wanted to say, but she couldn't bring herself to speak it. The other girl's gaze was sympathetic and she reached out to touch Webby's shoulder. Webby jerked back, flinching at the sudden movement, and Lena frowned.

"You too, huh?" she whispered.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Webby rejoined.

"Well, fine, if you wanna play that game…" Lena rolled her eyes. Leaves crunched behind them and Lena stood, surveying their surroundings. Webby sprang to her feet as well.

"What was that?" Lena whispered. A flashlight pierced the darkness. "They're still looking for us. Got a safe spot we can hide?"

"I thought you said you lived in the theatre," she retorted.

"I do, but it's a public space," she pointed out. "Anywhere that the Beagle Boys can't go?"

Webby glanced up at McDuck Manor in the distance. Did she really want to go back? On the other hand, did she want the entirety of the Beagle Boy family searching for her and Lena? She grimaced. Damned if you and damned if you don't.

"Yeah, I do," Webby admitted after a minute. Her pocket buzzed and she groaned. The phone Mrs. Beakley had given her was in her skirt pocket.

"I kinda snuck out," Webby admitted.

"Away from your evil father?" Lena asked.

"Not quite. My granny...it's a long story. But my dad's still out there. He's just not in Duckburg."

"That doesn't explain anything at all, but we're running out of time…"

The lights were getting perilously close to the slide where the girls were hiding and Webby's heart was in her throat.

"I'll explain later," Webby promised, though at present she had no intention of doing that. "Let's go."

* * *

They'd returned from SHUSH HQ to discover Webby missing. The boys searched high and low for her, as did the adults, but to no avail. Wherever she'd absconded, it was outside of this house. Mrs. Beakley bristled, simultaneously worried and irked. On the one hand, if Webby was all right, then she had some explaining to do. If, on the other hand, Steelbeak had pursued her here and somehow circumvented the McDuck Manor security, they had a real problem on their hands. Where would children go if they didn't want to be detected in Duckburg?

She posed this question to the boys. The problem, she discovered, was that Huey would have gone to the library and Dewey would have just tagged along, possibly heading to the theatre if not to the library with Huey. Louie, on the other hand, seemed to have a more viable suggestion.

"The abandoned theatre could work," he said. "Or the playground. I've seen kids hang out there at night...but that's a different crowd than the kids that are there during the day."

Nodding, taking this into account, she readied herself to bring Webby back, assuming Steelbeak's fingers weren't on this in some way.

"No offense, Mrs. Beakley," Huey said. "But if Webby ran away from the manor, she probably doesn't want to talk to you or Uncle Scrooge. It might be better if we go and talk to her instead."

Mrs. Beakley stiffened and then sighed. She'd barely had her granddaughter back for a day and already, she was fighting a losing battle. The next time, she'd do better. She wouldn't let Webby out of her sight unless she was with an adult she trusted.

"All right," she agreed reluctantly. "Find her. Bring her back. Please."

"She can handle herself," Louie said, offering Mrs. Beakley a smile. "It'll be fine, Mrs. B."

"And she trusts us," Dewey said. Mrs. Beakley's scowl deepened. Yes, she trusted them, inasmuch as she trusted anyone right now, which was very little.

* * *

Webby wasn't sure how she'd explain Lena as a tag-along or how she'd explain that the Beagle Boys were after them. Deciding she'd figure it out later, she headed for the manor with Lena behind her. They ran for a few blocks until they realized there was no pursuit. Lena frowned, glancing around.

"Is it me or did they all just disappear?" Lena asked. "Did they get distracted or…?"

"Probably distracted by their own shadows," Webby scoffed. Her throat was tight. "So, uh, like I said, I snuck out. I'm probably gonna have to ring the doorbell and hope they're not too upset with me. It's kinda the first day I'm home after they took me away from my father who kidnapped me...for five years."

"Screwed up family dynamic," Lena said sarcastically. "I have no idea what that's like."

An air rifle cracked near them and they jumped, Lena inching closer to Webby. Webby stiffened, hands on her blades.

"Do you really think knives are gonna work in a gunfight?" Lena hissed. "C'mon. We're sitting ducks out here."

"I know, I know," she said, not appreciating the reminder. She sought out high ground. Chances were the air rifle shot had come from above them. If they could scale the buildings near McDuck Manor, they might have the advantage.

Finally, she located a fire escape and ascended, offering Lena assistance when she had difficulty making the leap. They dashed up past apartments, and onto the roof. And right into the Beagle Boy holding the air rifle. Lena cursed softly. However, Webby didn't see the problem. The Beagle Boy was alone, trembling, likely frightened out of his mind, and barely knew which end of the rifle was up. Barring a lucky hit, he had no chance of threatening her.

She swept his feet out from under him, grabbed the gun when it fell, and pointed it at him. He fled, howling, into the night. Webby swallowed hard. They really needed to get back to the manor. Chances were that the others had returned home and had already sent search parties for her.

Her phone was vibrating again and she pulled it out of her pocket. She debated answering it. Mrs. Beakley's number flashed on the screen and Webby toggled the phone over to silent mode. She knew she was due for a lecture, but that didn't mean that she wanted to contend with one right now.

Remaining on the rooftops was impossible. Sooner or later, they'd have to return to the ground. She had no idea how many boys Ma Beagle had and she wasn't sure they could outrun all of them. They didn't have to-they just had to beat the ones chasing them to the manor. Webby frowned, hand on her hip sheath.

"Let's go," she said and shimmied down the fire escape back to the ground. She and Lena bolted through the streets and although Webby didn't hear pursuit, she sensed it by the pricking of her feathers. Though her phone was on silent, she sensed it continue to ring. Not looking where she was going, she crashed into a kid and huffed, raising the knife.

"Holy crap, why are you still running around with those?" Louie cried and Webby lowered her knife.

"Louie?" she said.

"Yes, it's me," he snapped. "Why is your first instinct to pull a knife on people?"

Webby slotted the knife back into its sheath and saw Dewey and Huey nearby. Now that they'd stopped, she could hear footsteps pounding the pavement behind them. Hissing, she grabbed Louie and Dewey and gestured for Lena to grab Huey.

"We pissed off the Beagle Boys," Webby explained as she yanked two of the triplets along. "And now they're coming after us."

"What, did you pull a knife on them too?" Louie asked. Upon seeing Webby's expression, he groaned. "You really have to stop doing that."

They weren't too far from the manor, thankfully. As soon as they crossed the grounds and eased in through the gate, she and Lena released the boys. The gates closed just as three Beagle Boys turned up and glowered at them. Lena blew them a raspberry.

"Do you have any idea how dangerous they are?" Huey said.

"They're not that dangerous," Lena scoffed. "They're small-time criminals."

With misgivings, she turned her back on them. They hadn't gotten too far into the house before encountering Scrooge and Mrs. Beakley. Lena sidled away, but before she could escape, Mrs. Beakley tugged her into the group.

"What did you think you were doing?" Mrs. Beakley demanded. "You're home not even a day and you sneak out? And who is this?"

"What's with the twenty questions? She went out to have a good time. Chill," Lena scoffed.

"No, I will not 'chill'," Mrs. Beakley snapped.

"You could have been hurt," Scrooge said to Webby. "You dinnae know what you're doing in Duckburg. You barely know how to get around the manor, let alone town!"

Webby balled her fists. Steelbeak had never cared what she did in her spare time, so long as she didn't pester anyone and stayed out of the way. She wasn't used to being cross-examined and having her motives questioned.

"I had to get out, okay?" she said. "I felt like the walls were closing in on me."

"Considering she spent the last six years behind walls, it's understandable," Huey said and she flashed him a grateful look.

"Be that as it may, you deliberately ignored my phone calls," Mrs. Beakley said. "You walked out without telling anyone where you were going and who knows what could have happened. I just got you back."

"I never said I wanted to be here," Webby said, sullen. Memories crowded in on her and threatened to overwhelm her again. She was five and she had her Quacker Patch doll. She was staring at a picture of her mother...but no, she'd never seen her mother. How could she have had a picture?

A headache threatened to brew between her temples and she groaned, clutching her head. Steelbeak had ordered her to suppress the memories. Why weren't they staying down? What was it about the manor that had stirred them up again?

"Are you okay?" Dewey asked.

"I don't belong here," Webby snapped.

"You don't belong with FOWL," Mrs. Beakley retorted. "You are my granddaughter, like it or not, and you are under my guardianship."

"Family drama. Sounds like a good time to check out," Lena said, heading for the door.

"And who have you brought with you?" Mrs. Beakley said, shooting Lena a warning glance.

"Her name's Lena," Webby said. "I met her at the abandoned theatre."

Mrs. Beakley huffed. "Be that as it may...we are continuing this conversation in private."

Then, before Webby had a chance to object, her grandmother steered her into the kitchen and shut the door. This was the first time she'd been alone with her grandmother since before her kidnapping. Anxiety rocketed through her and Mrs. Beakley seemed to deflate. She placed her hands on Webby's shoulders and Webby flinched, anticipating a blow that never fell.

"You need to be a kid, I get that," Mrs. Beakley said. "But could you not start by sneaking out of the house at night and scaring me half to death?"

"I told you I didn't want to be here."

"You said you remember me. And McDuck Manor."

"Steelbeak told me to suppress all of it because I was never coming back here."

Mrs. Beakley bristled and then pulled Webby into a tight hug. Webby hugged her back and discovered she was shaking. She was still rattled from the abrupt 180 her life had taken in the last few days. Maybe she was making poor decisions as a result. What of it? Her beak quivered too.

"He's never getting anywhere near you ever again."

Webby's stomach flip-flopped. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. For one thing, she wanted Steelbeak in her life, no mattethat he'd hurt her. Perhaps, in some way, she felt she deserved being punished for whatever transgressions she must have committed. She didn't repeat this to Mrs. Beakley. She had a feeling the logic would fall apart if she spoke it aloud.

"I'm glad you've made friends so soon, but...I don't want you wandering around Duckburg at night. If you're going to go somewhere, take the boys with you. Don't do that again. Do you hear me?"

Webby nodded and drew a deep, staggering breath. It felt good to be in her grandmother's arms. For the first time she could remember, she felt safe and secure. This contrasted with her need to be independent and aloof, both traits Steelbeak valued. Oh god, she was so confused.

"You might change your mind about staying here," Mrs. Beakley said. "Give us a chance."

Yet Webby knew she had no real choice. She couldn't return to Steelbeak, not unless she broke him out, and she didn't want to do that. In truth, she didn't know what she wanted anymore.


	8. Chapter 8

After Lena had been sent "home" (though living in the theatre didn't seem like much of a home to her), Webby was left to her own devices in her room. This time, however, the ghost butler was sent to keep an eye on her. She thought it was ridiculous. Obviously, she wasn't going to pull the same stunt twice. What wasn't ridiculous, however, was that her phone was vibrating again and she didn't recognize the number.

Curious, wondering who else had Agent 22's number, she answered.

"Hello?" she said. She had no experience with phone calls. After all, if anyone had allowed her near a phone in FOWL HQ, she might've reported Steelbeak and escaped confinement. Mrs. Beakley giving her a phone represented great trust that Webby didn't think she'd earned, but she wasn't going to quibble about it. She hoped the walls were thick here, though, in case this was someone the boys might overhear. Or that damn ghost butler, who was even now tidying up her room and muttering about her grandmother's lack of cleaning skills.

"I'm surprised you answered," Steelbeak said smugly and Webby's heart skipped a beat.

"Dad?" she said.

"Webby?" It took her father a second to realize what was going on and once he had, he chuckled. "Oh ho ho. Yet again, Agent 22 makes a fatal mistake."

Shit. Duckworth was staring at her. By now, he had to have been apprised of the situation. What was worse and what she found more ominous was that he'd vanished through her wall. She cringed, already anticipating this to blow up. Whatever he had to say to her, he'd better keep it short and to the point. She had a feeling her grandmother was en route.

"I'm so glad it's you and not Agent 22," Steelbeak told her. "Listen. I know you can get me out of this joint. Just call these people-I'll text you the numbers-and they'll spring me. Capeesh? They can pick you up too. You don't belong in Duckburg. You belong with FOWL. We're your family. Not Agent 22."

He scoffed. "Besides, why would Scrooge McDuck want a murderer under his roof?"

Webby's heart thudded. She'd somehow managed to forget all about Black Heron until he'd brought it up. It was too late to back out of it. The phone vibrated in her hand. She didn't know you could text and talk on the phone at the same time, but there was a lot about technology she didn't know, not having had access to it for the last six years.

"Webbigail Vanderquack!" Mrs. Beakley snapped and then yanked on the doorknob, which Webby had locked. "Unlock this door this instant!"

"Hide the phone," Steelbeak suggested. "Memorize the numbers. Call them later. Trust me-it's better this way."

Webby made a quick decision-which would be worse? Leave her grandmother outside the locked door? Or hang up on her father unceremoniously? Oh, well, Steelbeak would understand. She hit 'end call', darted to the door, and unlocked it. Her grandmother, before she had a chance to stow the phone in her pocket, yanked it out of her hands.

"I turn my back on you for an hour and this is what happens?" Mrs. Beakley snapped. "You know better than to speak to him."

It felt like different retorts vied for prominence and she couldn't speak; she was too frustrated. Balling her fists, she glowered at the phone in her grandmother's hands. True, she had the right to it-it was her phone, after all. But Webby resented that trust given could be retracted so easily. It reminded her of living in FOWL HQ, although, to be fair, she didn't have anything else to compare it to.

Her grandmother's anger ebbed away and she reached out to place a hand on Webby's shoulder. Webby turned so it didn't connect.

"I'm going to give you another phone," she told her. "I don't want you to walk around without a cell phone, but I also don't want you calling him back. Or anyone else that he might be associated with. I know this is hard. I know you feel like we've ripped you away from everything you know and I'm sorry."

She balled her fists too, looking like she wanted to reach out to her again but fearing rejection.

"Please trust us that this is the best thing for you," Mrs. Beakley said.

Webby faltered. She wanted to believe it, but she couldn't. After being lied to and manipulated for years, how was she supposed to know who to trust? The boys seemed like they could be trusted; they looked and acted like innocents unless that was a front too. But Lena...she didn't really know anyone here, did she? She could barely remember Agent 22 from before she was kidnapped and what she did remember was fragmented.

Mrs. Beakley sighed. "Please, Webby. I love you."

The words meant nothing to her. Or they should have meant nothing to her. After all, Steelbeak had never said them. Yet her stomach twisted and she dropped her gaze. She didn't know how to respond to that. Normal people said it back, right? But if she said it back, then she'd be lying because she didn't feel it. How could she know that her grandmother actually loved her or was only saying that to manipulate her the way Steelbeak did?

"You don't believe me."

Mrs. Beakley sounded crushed and against her better judgment, Webby looked up. Her grandmother's stern visage cracked and she shook her head, stepping back.

"I thought before that we'd made a connection…"

To be honest, Webby had thought so too, but she felt better off keeping her at arm's length. She was also oddly guilty, as if she shouldn't be isolating herself from her. It was on the tip of her tongue to apologize, but she hadn't done anything wrong, had she? If she hadn't, then why was Mrs. Beakley looking at her like that?

How could she explain herself in a way that she'd understand?

"Did Steelbeak ever tell you that?" she said and then scoffed. "Of course not. The only person Steelbeak loves is himself."

Webby shook her head but didn't specify which of her grandmother's theories she was rejecting. They stood there awkwardly and the phone vibrated again. Mrs. Beakley scanned the screen-it said what it had before-private caller. This time, she answered it and hit speakerphone. Webby eyed her carefully, wondering what she was up to.

"I'm guessing you got busted," Steelbeak said.

"What part of 'don't contact my granddaughter again' don't you comprehend?" Mrs. Beakley snapped.

"Webby," Steelbeak said, either ignoring Mrs. Beakley or acting like he didn't hear her. "You don't belong there. You know you don't. You're better off with someone who can train you and mold you into what you were always meant to be. A cold-blooded killer."

Webby shuddered. Logic argued that she had always been headed down that road. However, she had never wanted to kill anyone, especially not pre-meditated. Did it make her a terrible person that she was glad Black Heron was gone, even if it was a small part of her? That was glad Black Heron would never be looming nearby to hurt her?

Her grandmother hadn't risen to Steelbeak's taunt and she wondered why. She seemed to be waiting for Webby to respond. The problem was that Webby didn't know where to start. Everything the others had said swirled about in her mind until, unable to help herself, she blurted something out.

"Is that what you are? Is that why you killed my mom?" she said. "Why did you want me anyway? Gosalyn said you don't like kids. You never really acted like a father. Granny said that the only person you love is yourself."

"Poisoning you against me, eh?"

"Hardly," Mrs. Beakley interjected. "You did that all on your own. You never cherished her. You treat her like a prize to be won. You saw her mother the same way."

Webby clenched and unclenched her fists. Steelbeak had avoided the question. That meant whatever she'd said had credence. After all, if he hadn't agreed, he would have refuted it. Was this why her grandmother had put him on speakerphone?

"And she's right, the little brat. I don't like kids. But you're not a kid, Webby. You're so much more. You're a tool, a weapon against SHUSH. You don't even know what you're capable of."

In the back of her mind, she knew that this wasn't right, that a person who loved their offspring wouldn't see them as a weapon to be wielded. Or an extension of themselves. She knew Steelbeak was a narcissist from the psychology book she'd swiped from the library. He hadn't denied it when she'd brought it up. Rather, he'd seemed proud she'd taken the initiative and looked for information on her own. Or had that been misplaced pride in himself?

"Love is a way to manipulate people. It makes you weak and vulnerable. You don't need that in your life."

She shivered again. "Is that why you never hugged me? You barely touch me."

"You don't need to be babied. You're not a little kid."

Mrs. Beakley's gaze was intent upon her. She didn't want to be the one who hung up on Steelbeak. Rather, she wanted Webby to come to the decision on her own. Webby thought of the other conversations she'd had with him-they had revolved around himself. Now that he was trying to manipulate her, he talked about her, but otherwise, it was all about him. His needs. His desires. His goals.

Fingers trembling, she hit 'end call', if only to stop the doubt that was creeping in. She glanced up at Mrs. Beakley, whose beak was pursed.

"Love is not a weakness," Mrs. Beakley said softly. "Any more than being vulnerable is something to be ashamed of. You are not meant to be a cold-blooded killer and we both know that. You are a good person at heart. A psychopath like Steelbeak wouldn't be struggling like this. He'd have rejected what I told you and then replaced my logic with his own, as you can see."

She smoothed Webby's hair back from her face. "I love you. Steelbeak doesn't. I have been waiting for six years to see you again. I value you as a person, not a tool. You are not a tool to be whipped out in someone's arsenal, Webby."

"I…" She didn't know what to say or how to follow that up. Her throat was tight.

"I will have Gyro track down where this phone call came from and then I will give you another phone," Mrs. Beakley promised. "In the meanwhile, perhaps you ought to talk to the boys. You should get to know them. You were obsessed with them when you were five, even if you don't remember."

Obsessed with everything clan McDuck.

"Okay," she agreed, head down as she plodded toward the den where she thought she'd heard the boys earlier. Her self-esteem was not great thanks to Steelbeak and Black Heron needling her. As she approached the doorway, she heard the boys arguing. Curious, she crept closer.

"You can't do that," Huey objected. "It specifically says in the rulebook that you can't leave the house, Louie."

"Maybe I'm the traitor and by leaving the house, I'm letting you get out alive. You don't know," Louie said.

"We haven't even gotten to the haunting yet. You can't possibly know if you're the traitor," Huey retorted.

"How am I still stuck in the Mystic Elevator?" Dewey asked of no one in particular.

"What are you guys doing?" she asked, creeping into the room. The boys stopped arguing to look at her.

"We're playing Betrayal on House on the Hill," Huey explained, shooting Louie another dirty look. "Wanna play? We've got room for one more. And I can explain the rules again, since Louie here clearly needs a refresher."

It appeared to be a board game and she scanned the board and its pieces.

She sat beside Dewey. "How do you play?"

Dewey smiled at her and an odd warmth filled her chest. There were so many things she wasn't used to. As Huey explained the game, she memorized the rules and wondered if maybe she could be happy here. Or...was she destined to be like Steelbeak had said? How was she to know?

* * *

"If you'd kept him on the line, it'd be easier to trace him," Gyro said, waspish. As this was his usual attitude, Mrs. Beakley and Scrooge chose to ignore it.

"Now we have to wait and see if he calls back," Gyro continued.

As if on cue, the phone rang again and Gyro smiled. "Perfect. We just need to keep him talking for at least thirty seconds, then we'll have the number."

He hit 'accept'.

"You're trying to keep her from me," Steelbeak snapped at Mrs. Beakley. "It won't work. You won't turn her against me."

Gyro clamped his beak down on a retort, for which Mrs. Beakley was grateful. She didn't need him responding to Steelbeak's barbs. That might be enough to convince him to hang up and not call back.

"You'd be surprised," Mrs. Beakley said. "The child is touch starved."

"Hey, I didn't get hugged and treated like a baby all my life and I turned out just fine."

"That is a matter of opinion."

"Let me guess-you won't let me speak to her again?"

"I should never have let her speak with you in the first place. You are planting seeds of doubt in her mind and manipulating her to your own ends, as usual."

"But, hey, I bet she thinks you're the one doing that," Steelbeak said, smug, and Mrs. Beakley wished she'd hit him harder. There was nothing she could do if Webby had memorized the numbers Steelbeak had sent, but she had to trust the boys would keep Webby occupied long enough for her to speak with her about it. And maybe the boys would be able to convince Webby in a different way than Mrs. Beakley. They were almost her age, after all.

"You've been gaslighting her for her whole life."

"What works, works," Steelbeak said. "Listen, I'd love to stay and chew the fat with you, but I've got people to do and places to be. I'll be in touch."

The phone went dead and Gyro looked, if anything, smugger than Steelbeak had sounded.

"That was more than enough time," he informed them. "I know exactly what the number is. Someone smuggled in a phone into the jail, but by tracing the SIM card and finding where it'd been activated...I can find his accomplice."

"Good work, Gyro," Scrooge said. "Keep us apprised."

"Can do, Mr. McDuck," Gyro said. He frowned at Mrs. Beakley. "Hey. I'm the last person to tell you anything to do with kids, but...if she's doubting what Steelbeak told her after six years, then maybe there's hope after all."

He shrugged. "But I don't know kids."

Mrs. Beakley nodded. "I'll keep that in mind."

She wished she knew how to root out Steelbeak's influence once and for all. But she had the sense this was going to take a long time, regardless of what Gyro had said. Steelbeak had sunk his claws deep into Webby's psyche. One day in Duckburg was not enough to reverse the damage.

This was going to be quite frustrating.

On the ride home, she and Scrooge were silent. Launchpad chattered, filling the silence, and she ignored him. When they exited at the front door, she pulled it open to hear the sound of children laughing. Perplexed but also encouraged, she stepped toward the den, where she found the boys and Webby playing a board game. Scrooge was right behind her.

"How exactly did a giant dragon swoop down and lift the house off its foundations? And wouldn't that mean that you literally can't survive this? I mean, the fall would kill you either way," Webby pointed out.

"It's a board game. It doesn't have to make sense," Louie said with a shrug. He eyed the group.

"And you were wrong. You weren't the traitor," Huey told him. "In this scenario, there is no traitor."

"Unless you count gravity," Webby said.

Scrooge smiled and they walked away from the room. This was encouraging. She hadn't looked up to notice that they were there and she had been sitting close to Dewey, closer than someone who was afraid of touch would normally sit. She'd also sounded happy and Mrs. Beakley smiled.

"Don't give up, Beakley," Scrooge said and squeezed her shoulder. "We'll get there eventually."


	9. Chapter 9

Contrary to what her grandmother had thought, Webby had been aware of her and Scrooge watching them. She'd tensed, realizing she'd let her guard down, and thrust her walls back up. The boys seemed not to notice. They were too busy discussing the rules and whether Dewey, who was still stuck in the Mystic Elevator, was dead because the elevator had crashed to the basement prior to the dragon scooping the house up in its claws and carrying it off. By the rules of the game, it sounded like he was, but Dewey wasn't going to take that lying down.

"All I'm saying is that the Mystic Elevator is part of the house," Dewey argued. "And if it's part of the house, that means it was there when the dragon picked it up."

"It was ripped off its foundation, Dewey," Huey said, exasperated. He'd already explained this twice to the middle triplet. "You were left behind on the ground. Or you fell out of the Mystic Elevator. According to this scenario, anyone who was left in the basement when the house flew into the air is dead. You're dead, Dewey."

"I'm only dead if I think I'm dead," Dewey retorted.

"Ugh, who cares?" Louie groused. "Does anyone know how to defeat this thing?"

"Well, we'd need to slow it down first…" Huey mused, ignoring Dewey. "Webby, any ideas?"

She faltered, thinking that the boys had forgotten about her. She was used to making snap decisions in battle, but this was something else altogether. Moreover, she had no experience with board games. It wasn't like FOWL found rainy day activities. Crime didn't stop because it was raining.

"You could trick it into flying lower, maybe?" she suggested. "And seeing if you can get it stuck somewhere?"

"There must be something in the rulebook about this…" Huey mused.

"I should've known that you'd love this game. It's all about rules," Louie said and rolled his eyes. "Why don't you just marry it to the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook?"

"One, the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook is sacred and I'll thank you not to make fun of it. And two, this is much thinner than the new, revised edition of the JWG."

"C'mon, can't we end the game already?" Dewey complained. "I'm not getting any deader."

"Is that even a word?" Huey queried.

"I am so over this round. Let's just take the board down and reset it," Louie suggested. "We all know that you're going to get out of this alive and you'll lord it over the rest of us."

"And we all know that you'll cheat," Huey countered.

"It's not cheating. It's gaming the system. I see the strings that control it. You can't fault me for that," Louie responded.

"Oh, yes, I can," Huey shot back.

"Whatever…" Dewey said, falling over onto his back. "Can we do something? Being dead is boring. And making me hungry."

"How can being dead make you hungry?" Webby asked and poked at his stomach. When she did, she felt a jolt of electricity. She wasn't used to initiating touch. Dewey huffed, sitting upright again.

"Hey! What was that for?" he huffed.

"You looked poke-able," she said, unrepentant and thrilling in this new discovery. Touching people was strange and exciting. Meanwhile, Huey and Louie were still arguing and, in disgust, Louie upended the board, taking apart the rooms, extracting the Mystic Elevator, and restoring everything to how it had been before the game. Dewey stared at her.

"You're kinda quiet," Dewey commented.

Webby shrugged. "I'm keeping an eye on things."

"For you, it seems kinda out of character. I don't know how. It just does," Dewey said.

She shrugged again, not certain how to respond to that. Huey reluctantly reassembled the board and looked over the character cards. Webby chose a different character this time, sensing a strange dynamic with the boys. Louie seemed laid back, but he was calculating. Huey was a stickler for the rules. And Dewey was determined to win while not noticing Louie's attempts to undercut him.

"What was it like growing up in FOWL?" Dewey asked conversationally as they determined who was first up. As the boys shared a birthday, they had to go by birth order to determine who was first in line. It turned out Webby was older, which meant she had the right to go first. Then Huey, Dewey, and Louie, in that order.

"Why do you ask?" she responded, guarded.

"It doesn't seem like a fun place to be," Dewey said. "We heard a lot of screaming when we were down in the dungeon."

She suddenly felt chilled but didn't want to call attention to it by rubbing her arms.

"Did they ever send you on any missions?" Dewey continued, oblivious to Webby's discomfort.

"No," she said curtly. "I wasn't allowed to leave HQ. They didn't want me to escape."

"You had a weird reaction when we mentioned Duckburg and McDuck Manor," Huey observed. "You remember them a little, right? What do you remember?"

"Bits and pieces," she said. "I have no full memories until after I arrived at FOWL."

"So you don't remember your grandmother?" Dewey asked and she shook her head.

"Not really."

The boys were staring at her and she stiffened, unwilling to raise her head to look at them. Her hands fell onto her knives, which Mrs. Beakley probably should have taken off of her. The boys flinched and, to her shock, Dewey placed a hand on her right wrist. Her pulse jumped from his touch.

"Hey, we're not going to hurt you," Dewey said gently.

"So please don't hurt us," Louie added.

"It must've been pretty tough in there," Dewey said, sympathetic. "What happened when you were paraded past us before the rescue?"

"I don't-" her throat closed up and she swallowed hard, fighting to reopen it. "I don't want to talk about it."

Dewey was staring at her and, with misgivings, she raised her head to stare back. His gaze was intent and earnest, no guile or misdirection there. When she looked from him to Huey and Louie, she saw similar expressions mirrored on their faces. Louie looked distrustful, but not deceiving. They wore their emotions on their faces. She had more experience concealing her emotions than revealing them.

"What happened to Black Heron?" Dewey said and that was too much. She jumped to her feet and glowered down at him.

"I said I don't want to talk about it!" she snapped. Her chest was tight now too and her throat burned. How dare they pry? What right did they have to that information? She was shaking, hands balled into fists, and Dewey stood up next to her. He put his hands on her shoulders and she met his gaze. However, she didn't understand. He should be afraid of her. Yet he wasn't backing up.

"Calm down. You're safe here," Dewey said. "You can trust us."

"We just want to get to know you," Huey added.

The contact between her and Dewey grew too intense and she stepped back, uncertain whether she was angry at them or frightened by how forward they were. Confrontations had never ended well in FOWL HQ and she was usually the one left holding the bag. Fight or flight was kicking in, too, and she had to remind herself not to touch her knives. The boys weren't doing this to hurt her. They just didn't understand.

"Black Heron's dead," she said and her tone was flat. "She's dead because I killed her."

The boys exchanged troubled looks, though they didn't flee as she'd expected. Someone must have warned them ahead of time what had happened.

"In self-defense," Huey said.

She thought perhaps she could spell it out for them if she didn't meet their eyes and stared off without seeing into the distance. Her body felt like a plucked string.

"Steelbeak wanted me to kill a SHUSH agent. I refused. Black Heron killed him instead. Black Heron's orders were to 'beat the mercy' out of me. I didn't-I didn't have a choice. But I still killed her."

The boys were silent and she risked a glance at Dewey. For some reason, she felt drawn to him over his brothers. She didn't get the weird butterflies sensation she had with Lena, but she did feel a strange kinship despite barely knowing him.

"Okay, I knew they were evil, but…" Louie seemed at a loss for words. Without conferring about it, the boys stepped forward and hugged her. For someone who had seldom received hugs until very recently, this was disconcerting. She felt trapped, ensnared in their arms, and she shuddered. They released her after a moment and she breathed easier, still wishing that she could run and hide. This situation was so out of the norm for her that she had no idea what to expect.

"You're safe here," Huey repeated.

"I can't believe your father would order something like that," Louie said, shaking his head. "What kind of parent is that? Uncle Donald's been raising us since we hatched and he'd never...I've never even heard of anything like that."

"I guess I was too soft for FOWL," she said with a shrug. She'd known it was abnormal what Steelbeak had in mind for her, but she hadn't realized how atrocious it was until she saw their responses.

"Too soft for…" Louie gaped. "By that definition, anyone who isn't a sociopath is too soft for them."

She nodded. "That sounds about right."

"I can't even imagine…" Huey said, thunderstruck.

"You don't want to talk about it, do you?" Dewey asked. His gaze was sympathetic and she couldn't meet it. It hurt to see that he cared about her when she hadn't earned it.

"You're better off here. With us," Dewey said decisively. "We'll protect you."

She snorted. The idea was laughable. They couldn't protect anyone or anything. Dewey looked affronted at her response and she shrugged again. This was getting to be too much socialization for one day. The need to escape burned within her, even if she'd been lonely growing up in FOWL.

"Webbigail," Mrs. Beakley said from the doorway and she turned, almost grateful for the reprieve. "A word?"

"We've got your back," Dewey promised. How could they? They barely knew her.

Mrs. Beakley smiled and Webby walked over to her with her head down. One always kept their head down near a superior, after all. It wouldn't do to look up, meet their gaze, and be insolent. Black Heron had drilled that lesson into her.

* * *

Forced socialization put her guards back up and she was defensive when she prepared for bed. Her grandmother had taken away her knives, which Webby had fought her over, and tucked her into bed. She had alternatively resented it (she wasn't a little kid) and liked it because it'd been six years since anyone had fussed over her that much. Now that she was in bed, however, and the knives weren't within arm's reach as they had been for the last few years, she found herself staring up at the ceiling.

She was overtired and didn't want to sleep. Clearly, locking the door was out, though the barriers didn't seem to matter to Duckworth anyway. Privacy was, as always, an illusion. She huddled and hugged her Quacky Patch doll, then tossed it aside. Black Heron would see her doing that as weakness...but she wasn't here. She wasn't alive anymore. And Webby was the reason.

Gosalyn and the others had insisted it was in self-defense. Even if it was, it didn't change the fact that someone was dead because of her. It also didn't change the fact that she was in a strange room, surrounded by things she ought to recognize but didn't, and in a place she ought to remember but didn't. She almost missed her old room at FOWL HQ, even if it didn't have anything personal in it. It was at least familiar.

Cocking her head at the door, she listened to determine whether there was anyone outside. She didn't hear anyone, but she also didn't know how thick the doors were. When she pushed herself out of bed, she swayed. She'd passed out on the Sunchaser. She wouldn't succumb to fatigue again that easily. Black Heron had once kept her up for three days straight. She knew how to remain awake, regardless.

Of course, the consequences of that had been dreadful.

The recollection made her want to slink back to bed. However, she needed more information. She was able to slip out of her room and down the hall without much difficulty. Other than Mrs. Beakley and Duckworth, Scrooge didn't employ any servants. The boys were asleep and their uncle Donald lived in the houseboat in Scrooge's swimming pool. Therefore, she was unsurprised to find the manor empty. Considering that FOWL HQ had been alive and full of bodies at any hour of the night, she found it unsettling.

She snuck along until she heard voices and then ducked back, concealing herself close enough to listen and not be seen.

"I never anticipated I'd have this much difficulty with her," Mrs. Beakley was saying. "I should have known Steelbeak was determined to wrench her away by any means necessary."

"Ye cannae jump to conclusions just yet. Ye barely know the wee bairn," Scrooge answered.

"That's the problem. I raised her for five years and she barely knows me either." She sighed. "Even when he's not here, he's still winning."

"There's no easy way to banish him, Beakley. And she wouldn't have survived if she hadn't adapted. She's stronger than ye give her credit for."

"How am I supposed to convince her to trust me when she wanders out and about on her own? I can barely trust her, let alone the reverse."

"Kids'll be kids," he said decisively. "Ye cannae expect her to be completely content with the situation. In her mind, she's been thrown to the sharks."

Webby stepped back, thinking through what she'd heard. Trust was hard won on both sides and Webby had never really trusted anyone. Not Steelbeak and certainly not Black Heron. She frowned and became aware of someone standing over her. Mrs. Beakley frowned down at her granddaughter.

"Did you really think I wouldn't hear you?" she said.

Webby looked up. "Hi."

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" Mrs. Beakley asked.

She shrugged and then stifled a yawn. She swayed on her feet again and Mrs. Beakley sighed. She wondered where her grandmother had stashed the knives. They were a strange security blanket, to be sure.

"Webby…" Mrs. Beakley knelt down to her level. "It's okay to go to sleep. Nothing bad is going to happen to you here, I promise."

"Ye can trust us," Scrooge said. "I have the best security system in the world here. No one's getting in. Ye'll be fine, Webbigail."

She couldn't tell them what was plaguing her, specifically. This place was too strange and unfamiliar. She always had to be on her toes in FOWL HQ and the feeling hadn't diminished. If anything, it'd gotten stronger. It wasn't like Steelbeak had protected her all that much and Black Heron was no more, so she couldn't exactly say what it was, beyond the unfamiliarity, that provoked this malaise.

"Do you want me to stay with you until you fall asleep?" Mrs. Beakley offered and Webby grimaced. She was sure her grandmother meant well, but...she shook her head.

"Maybe we should stay up for a while and talk," she suggested. She glanced over at Mr. McDuck and said, "I'll put on some tea. Non-caffeinated."

Webby trotted after her grandmother while she added water to the kettle and set it to boil. Tea was such a British thing.

Webby sat at the table and held her head in her hands. She yawned and covered her mouth. Her eyelids felt heavy and she scrubbed at her eyes to keep from falling asleep.

"Now, while we're waiting for that to boil…why don't you tell me what a typical night at FOWL HQ is like?" she suggested.

"A lot busier," Webby said and covered her mouth to conceal another yawn. "Everyone's always bustling around and on business. It's like the place never really goes to sleep. Villains are night owls."

Fatigue threatened to sweep her under.

"Did you ever sleep well?"

"I learned how to function on very little sleep," she said and shrugged. Her eyelids fluttered and she could feel her grip slipping.

"That's not healthy for a growing child. Then again, that whole atmosphere was toxic."

She couldn't hold her head up anymore. Fatigue swept her up in its grip again and this time, it didn't relent. Her head crashed onto the table and she knew no more. 

* * *

As she had expected, Webby had fallen asleep at the table. She scooped her granddaughter up in her arms and for a minute, marveled that she could get this close to her, if only while she was slumbering. Webby whimpered, snuggling closer to her as if instinctively knowing what her conscious mind refused to accept. Mrs. Beakley stroked her hair and Scrooge smiled when he came into the room.

"I believe we can wait until morning for that tea," Scrooge said, shutting off the burner. Mrs. Beakley nodded.

"Good night, Mr. McDuck."

"Night, Beakley," he said and covered his mouth when he yawned. "Lousy jet lag."

Mrs. Beakley walked back toward Webby's room. Webby was still whimpering in her sleep and whispering frantically, no doubt entreaties to whatever phantoms haunted her nightmares. Mrs. Beakley brushed a kiss along her forehead and Webby stilled. Affection was doubtlessly in high demand and short supply at FOWL HQ.

"I love you," she whispered as she reached her door, opened it, and tucked Webby back into bed. "Sleep well, sweet dreams, Webby."

She wished she could confront all of Webby's demons for her. Even if she could, Webby wouldn't have let her. Mrs. Beakley suddenly felt as exhausted as her granddaughter had looked.

Somehow, she doubted neither she nor her granddaughter was destined to sleep well tonight. 

* * *

She was curled into a tight ball and sobbing. Part of her was aware this was a nightmare, but the rest was sunk into the dream. In the dream, she could remember begging Steelbeak to bring her back to the manor and her grandmother. She'd cried so hard that she'd had a headache for hours. Yet no matter how much she wept, Steelbeak had ignored her. He'd ordered the Eggheads to shut her away into a small, empty room until she'd cried herself out.

Strangely, she felt someone wrap their arms about her and rock her back and forth. That same someone was murmuring to her and reassuring her. She knew this wasn't right, that this shouldn't be happening, but she couldn't resist. She clutched the person holding her and, eventually, her cries subsided and she fell back into a dreamless sleep. 

* * *

This was going to be a long night, she could tell. After Webby had fallen asleep and then entered REM sleep, she'd heard her crying as if her heart were broken. She'd been pleading for her, perhaps regressing to when Steelbeak had originally kidnapped her. From that point on, Mrs. Beakley decided to stay and keep an eye on her granddaughter. Some of it was selfish, a desire to watch her granddaughter sleep as she hadn't for six years. The rest was to ensure she didn't have nightmares.

When she was sure the danger had passed, she slunk off to her room for a couple of hours sleep before she had to wake up for work. 

* * *

Scrooge eyed the giant cup of coffee she had in front of her. "Long night?"

"I haven't slept that poorly in a long time," she admitted. The subject died as soon as the kids came in. Donald was with them and she inclined her head toward him. His eyes widened, but he nodded back. Webby was the last to enter and she kept her head down, her hands at her waist where her knives had been. What a dreadful existence to think you'd need them at the breakfast table…

"Good morning, kids," Scrooge said.

"I had the weirdest dream," Dewey started. "That Mom was on the moon."

Everyone froze; everyone except Webby, that was, who had no idea what was going on. She shuffled up to the table and reached for the coffee pitcher. Mrs. Beakley swatted her hand away.

"Coffee's for adults," she chastised.

No one seemed to know what to say. Scrooge, in particular, looked alternatively vexed and guilty. Mrs. Beakley squeezed his shoulder as she went into the kitchen to fetch more orange juice for the kids. Of all of them, she alone knew what he'd endured after losing Della. There was no need to bring that up again, especially over breakfast.

"Where does Gosalyn live?" Webby asked, sensing the tension in the room. "I know she doesn't live here, but I didn't get a chance to ask."

As one, the adults relaxed minutely.

"She lives in St. Canard with that buffoon, Darkwing Duck," Mrs. Beakley said. "He's her father."

"Is that why…" Webby faltered, chancing a look upward. "Is that why he was so upset?"

"You and Gosalyn are the same age," Mrs. Beakley replied. "Seeing you in that horrid place must've made him wonder how Gosalyn could have fared in the same situation."

She was grateful Webby had changed the topic, even if it wasn't likely to stay changed for long.

"Steelbeak's in Duckburg's police station, right? I want to see him," she said.

Huey beat Mrs. Beakley to the punch. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"It's definitely not," Mrs. Beakley said.

"He's still my father," Webby said, eyes flashing.

"Just because he is your biological father doesn't mean he deserves the title," Scrooge said and Mrs. B agreed.

Webby glanced back down at that and then looked up again. "He can't hurt me from the jail cell."

"He doesn't need to touch you to hurt you," Mrs. Beakley reminded her.

"Maybe we should take a trip to St. Canard," Dewey suggested. "If Webby wants to see Gosalyn again and I wanna see Darkwing…"

"While I wouldn't normally agree, I think that might be a good idea, at least for now," Mrs. Beakley said.

"Yes," Scrooge said, still sore over Dewey mentioning Della. "I'll call him."

Webby frowned and Mrs. Beakley knew that visiting Steelbeak, much like the conversation regarding Della, had only been tabled. It hadn't been discarded.


	10. Chapter 10

She had to figure out a way to see him. However, how she intended to do that, she didn't know. She needed validation from him, even if he wasn't the best source for that. Regardless of how he'd treated her, he was still her father. What was worse was that everything was confused in her head.

Two weeks had gone by since her return to McDuck Manor, her supposed rescue, and in that time, though she'd grown to trust the triplets and Lena a little, she remained wary of the adults. Launchpad was harmless, as far as that went, but her grandmother and Mr. McDuck were suspect. It bothered her so much that she couldn't talk to her father about any of this. Not that she'd confided in him before, but she felt like life was moving too fast and she needed it to slow down. Nothing was normal.

Her grandmother had put the kibosh on any further training, too, which meant she had too much spare time on her hands. Already, she'd mapped out McDuck Manor and located the areas she couldn't access, such as the Other Bin. She'd found the secret tunnel underneath the house leading to the Money Bin and a way to sneak past Miss Quackfaster to get into the archives. More to satisfy her curiosity than because she had a strong attachment, either way, she sought out information on Della. There was precious little, but what there was she shared with Dewey.

It had taken two weeks for her grandmother to relax enough to let Webby out of the house again without a chaperone. Webby had taken the opportunity to visit Lena, seeing as she couldn't get into Duckburg Police Department without them calling her guardian. Lena was at the old theatre, writing letters to no one again. The older girl looked somber, head down, and Webby sensed a pall of misery about her. It drew her in.

She sat near Lena and waited for an acknowledgment. At last, Lena looked up and raised her eyebrows at Webby.

"You could've said something," Lena objected. "Instead of lurking there all creepy."

Webby shrugged. "Lurking's something I learned in FOWL HQ. That way, you catch your enemy unaware and you can study them with impunity-you have the element of surprise."

"Since when am I your enemy?"

She shrugged. "You're not. Everyone is."

"You have some serious trust issues, pink," Lena said and her beak quirked toward a smile. She shifted position and moved closer to her. Webby could see the string holding her amulet underneath her shirt and remembered again that strange shadow woman hissing at her. She'd never brought it up with Lena and Lena hadn't mentioned it. Webby knew better than to pry.

"Did you want to hang out?" Webby blurted and cursed herself for being so obvious about it. She didn't know how to purport herself around children her own age. She was still struggling with the triplets. Socialization was awkward at best and she rocked back on her heels. Already, she anticipated Lena's rejection. No one wanted to be around her unless they were forced to; at least, that was how it had been.

"I thought that was what we were doing?"

"Oh." Webby flushed. "Yeah."

"We could do something fun, more fun than this. Sitting writing ransom notes is fun and all, but we could go see a movie, unearth an underground civilization, antagonize a criminal gang...something like that."

"See a movie?"

"You've never seen one," Lena said, flat, disbelieving. "What kind of rock did you crawl out from under?"

"I've seen movies. Just not in theatres."

Lena was studying her and she reached out to touch her shoulder. Webby flinched, jumping backward to prevent her from making contact. Lena's frown deepened. For an experiment, she moved quickly toward her and Webby didn't know if she was going in for a hug or an attack. In her experience, sudden movements were ill omens and she lunged, knocking the older girl away and causing her to fall over. If she'd had her knives, she might have stabbed her. Probably for the best that Mrs. Beakley had confiscated them.

"Webby," Lena said and there was no teasing tone now. "You really don't do well with touch, do you?"

"I'm fine," Webby said, bristling, feeling like she'd been rebuked for something she couldn't control. No one had told Lena to jump like she was about to attack her. Webby had been well within her rights to expect abuse. Lena was the one who was making a mountain out of a molehill.

"Hmm."

"Hmm what?" she snapped back, on the defensive now.

"You said your dad kidnapped you," Lena said and Webby hissed. She wasn't prying into Lena's life. How dare Lena pry into hers. She jumped to her feet and balled her fists, wishing for her weapons with a desire that was painful. If she'd had her knives, that would put an end to these questions. Never mind that Lena had only asked her a couple of questions.

"So?" she spat.

Lena's eyes widened. "You know what? Never mind. Forget I asked or said anything. Wanna see what's in the movie theatres? I can get us in without paying."

Webby scowled. She didn't know if she wanted to see a movie anymore, but she also didn't want to go home. Home continued to feel like a prison, more so than FOWL had for some odd reason. She was quivering and Lena rose to her feet too. She put a hand on Webby's shoulder and Webby let her. Warmth blossomed through her and she hated the pitying look Lena gave her. She hated it and yet, she was touched by it. She hated herself.

"I'm not your enemy," she repeated. "And I know what it's like to be held captive."

Though she wanted to, she didn't pry. Instead, she let the older girl lead the way back into town. Lena was quiet, letting Webby sink into her own thoughts. Perhaps in another life, she might've filled the silence with effervescence, chatting about everything and nothing. Now, she surveyed her surroundings, wishing again she was armed. It didn't seem fair to walk around unarmed and vulnerable. You never knew if someone was going to attack.

The movie theatre was in a decent part of town, so they didn't see any Beagle Boys skulking about. Lena found an old fire exit that was left partially open with cigarette butts lining the pavement nearby. She slipped inside and beckoned Webby with her. This was probably breaking the law, but Webby didn't care. Her morals weren't exactly stellar after her upbringing.

Their hands brushed and Webby jumped, feeling the sparks shoot through her again. It was weird to touch someone else in a neutral or positive way. She still couldn't figure Lena out, never mind her feelings toward the other girl. It wasn't like anyone had explained relationships to her.

They crept into the back of an empty theatre and waited for the show to start.

"So, where did you live before you got to Duckburg?" Lena asked in a would-be casual voice.

"Somewhere," Webby said vaguely, not sure why she was back to prying.

"I lived in Paris for a while," Lena said and plucked at her shirt. "It's where I got this. But they kept trying to get me to reform and go to school, so I left. That and I wasn't that good a pickpocket."

Somehow, it didn't surprise her that she had criminal tendencies. Perhaps that was part of her allure to Webby. Webby felt a little guilty to be holding things back from Lena when Lena seemed more forthcoming than her at this point. She got the sense Lena didn't exactly gush personal stuff.

"How old are you?" Lena asked.

"I'll be twelve in a couple of days," she said and then exhaled sharply. Twelve. This would be her first birthday outside of the HQ. She didn't know what to expect. When she'd had her birthday before, Steelbeak had presented her with her choice of weapons and Black Heron had been ordered to leave her alone for the entire day. Moreover, she was given treats from the kitchen. Sometimes, Steelbeak even let her watch him plan a heist or sit back during a crime spree. Those were rarities.

"What?"

"I've never had a birthday here before. I don't know what to expect."

"I don't even know when my birthday is," she scoffed. "Birthdays are overrated."

"How do you not know when your birthday is?"

"No one ever told me." Lena shrugged. "It's not that big a deal, pink. Chill."

It seemed wrong somehow that Lena had never celebrated a birthday. True, Webby's birthdays hadn't always been that great. Once, Black Heron had broken her word to Steelbeak and beaten her bloody. Another time, she'd awoken to find herself locked in the freezer courtesy of Black Heron. For a few seconds, she was glad she was dead and that she'd been the one to do it. Then she felt ashamed and looked down.

"Is your grandmother that different from your father?" Lena asked.

"Kinda," Webby said and hugged herself. "She has all of these expectations of me."

"Tell me about it. Family is the worst, right?"

"You couldn't figure out a way to sneak me into the local jail, could you?" Webby blurted. "Or a way to get me past the police and into the jail?"

"Wait, what? Why would you want to do that?" Lena looked at her like she had six heads.

"My dad's in lockup," Webby admitted. She felt odd saying that as if she were drawing more attention to herself. By now, Lena's attention was fixed on her. Perhaps she should have kept her comment to herself.

"What'd he do? Oh, right. Kidnap you."

"I need to talk to him, but Agent 22-I mean, Granny, won't let me anywhere near him."

"Is your grandmother a spy?" Lena scoffed and then paused. "Wait. She totally is a spy, isn't she? Holy crap, Webby. Is your dad, like, an arch villain?"

"My dad's Steelbeak," Webby muttered.

"Doesn't ring a bell," Lena said, shaking her head. She frowned, surveying Webby anew. "If you were raised by a villain, that explains a lot."

"It doesn't explain anything," Webby retorted, irritated that Lena was jumping to conclusions. "I'm normal."

"As normal as I am, pink. Man, we're both screwed up."

The coming attractions had started, for which Webby was grateful because it meant an end to the conversation. What was Lena's last comment supposed to mean, anyway? She side-eyed the older girl, who had, coincidentally, avoided the question of her age rather well. Webby had let herself be distracted.

How had her being raised by Steelbeak explained anything? Webby didn't understand. And how did that make her and Lena kindred spirits? Lena was stretched out, feet up on the chair in front of her, and, cautious, Webby leaned against her. Touch was okay if she initiated it.

Lena looked startled but didn't jerk away as Webby had earlier. Instead, she draped an arm about Webby's shoulders and Webby shifted closer to her. Warmth rushed to her cheeks and the butterflies came back. Lena's grip tightened as if she intended to protect Webby from something or someone. Webby's beak quirked.

"You and me, pink. We are both royally screwed up," Lena muttered.

* * *

Steelbeak was being obstinate, but he was no match for Mrs. Beakley, who had been waiting years for this to happen. She sat across from him, he behind bars and she outside of them, and her fists balled. Steelbeak wasn't quite as cocky without his entourage, though he still refused to yield vital information about Webby's rearing. She needed to understand her granddaughter better and Webby was not forthcoming. Therefore, as much as it pained her, she needed to go to the source.

"Why did you allow Black Heron access to my granddaughter when you knew what would happen?" she demanded.

"You were gonna keep her in a protective bubble," Steelbeak retorted. "The only way for Webby to learn how to deal with murderers is to throw her into the ocean with the sharks and see if she swims."

Mrs. Beakley bristled. "She could have killed her. Even if you don't care about Webby as an individual or love her as you should, in the very least you should have realized that she was irreplaceable."

"I stopped her before she got the point of killing her," Steelbeak scoffed.

"Yet you allowed Webby to kill Heron."

"Black Heron had it coming. And hey, better her than me, right? Nothing toughens you up faster than your first kill."

There were so many things wrong with that statement Mrs. Beakley didn't know where to begin. For a minute, she was aghast, too stunned to speak. She found herself quivering in rage and only Scrooge's hand on her shoulder prevented her from lashing out. Mrs. Beakley had told Webbigail that they were going to Cape Suzette to throw off suspicion and prevent her from sneaking along. Right now, Bentina wished she'd gone there instead. It would've been far less vexing.

"Webby should never have needed to kill anyone. And yes, I would rather it would have been you than her. How could you take away her innocence like that?"

Her chest was tight.

"Beakley...we're not getting what we came here for. He's just going to rile you up," Scrooge warned. "You're working yourself up."

"Yeah, listen to old moneybags. Innocence is overrated. The sooner you shed it, the better. It's not like I let anything else happen to her," he said and scoffed. "A few beatings here and there, sure. But I never let anyone touch her otherwise."

The words fell heavily upon her and, for a half a minute, she was frozen. Then an inchoate fury seized her and she roared, pushing Scrooge aside and lunging for Steelbeak behind the bars. He was beyond her reach before she could grab him. She knew what he was intimating and she wanted to kill him for it.

"Webby. Is. Eleven.," she spat. "Would you really have let happen to her what you did to my Wren?"

"Wren was a willing participant," Steelbeak said, smug since she couldn't reach him.

"Willing participant-that's such a crock of bull-" Before she had a chance to curse him out, Scrooge yanked her back.

"We're leaving now, Beakley. You shouldnae have let him get under your skin."

"I just told you I wouldn't have let her get hurt that way," Steelbeak scoffed. "I don't get what you're so angry about."

"She's a child and you act as though having any line to draw makes you superior when you've abused her every other way!" she snapped. Pain tightened her chest and she hated him so fiercely that if she could have, she would have killed him in that instant. She would have scattered his body parts so far apart no one could have put him back together again.

"C'mon, Beakley," Scrooge growled and yanked her along. Though she wanted to fight him too, she permitted him to drag her along. This wasn't over, not by far. Should she have been grateful that Steelbeak had confirmed what she had suspected? Should she have thanked him for subjecting Webby to mental, emotional, and physical abuse? Her granddaughter barely trusted the triplets. She refused to trust her at all. It was like a knife in her gut.

The wrongness of it, after the bright memories she had of Webby at age five before her kidnapping, made her want to scream and cry. Scrooge brought her back to the limo and she ignored Launchpad's questions. She didn't trust herself to speak; she didn't know what would come out, either a yell or a sob. Still quivering, she stared out the window. She knew she couldn't have trusted Webby to stay alone in the manor with only Duckworth for company. It was a cinch she was around town somewhere, probably with Lena.

Mrs. Beakley let out a ragged sigh. She didn't like this situation one bit. As the jail faded behind them, her chest tightened further until it was a struggle to breathe normally.

"He'll pay for what he's done, Bentina," Scrooge promised in an undertone. He'd rolled up the divider between themselves and Launchpad.

"Not enough," Mrs. Beakley said and hated the bitterness in her voice. "The damage is already done."


	11. Chapter 11

Webby almost forgot who and where she was in the darkened theatre. She was able to relax and lower her guard for once. She was vaguely aware of herself up against Lena and Lena holding her, almost like a date. For once, unselfconscious, she was capable of feeling like she might be able to be herself, her true self, the one that FOWL had done its utmost to squash for so long. She could enjoy holding and being held and watching something that had nothing to do with her.

The next two and a half hours passed in a happy blur and they were sure to exit the theatre the same way they'd entered. They didn't want to arouse suspicion by walking out a monitored exit. Webby was all pumped up from the movie-it'd been a superhero movie, about a girl who kicked ass and took names. Jumping about, Webby struck poses and pretended to fight off Lena, who was only too happy to oblige her.

"So, what do you wanna do next?" Lena asked. "We don't have any money, but that shouldn't be a problem."

It wouldn't be a problem as long as whatever they stole they didn't get caught taking, Webby agreed. Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she looked at it warily.

"Lemme guess-adults checking up on you?" Lena said and rolled her eyes. "Let it go to voicemail."

"If I don't answer it, she'll probably start looking for me. The last time, she sent the boys after me."

"The boys? Oh, right, those losers I met in the manor." She shrugged, clearly seeing this as no great loss. Webby glowered.

"They're not losers," she retorted. "Their names are Huey, Dewey, and Louie and they're supposed to be like my siblings."

"Okay, okay." Lena held up her hands in a gesture of defeat. "Sorry. Didn't mean to step on your toes."

Webby rolled her eyes and answered the phone. It was, no surprise there, her grandmother.

"Webbigail, where are you?" she demanded.

"I went to the movies with Lena. I'm fine, Agent-Granny."

Her grandmother groaned and Webby facepalmed. She should have known better than to call her that to her face. It was just that she had difficulty, even after a while, thinking of her grandmother as anything but the enemy. Lena was watching her avidly and Webby put a hand on her face to prevent any outbursts. Butterflies careened around in her stomach at the touch and blood rushed to Lena's cheeks.

"Do you even think of me as your grandmother at all?"

"I do," she protested.

"But I'm first and foremost a SHUSH agent and an opponent. Is that right?"

"It was a slip of the tongue. It won't happen again."

She was on the defensive and feeling like she had in FOWL when she'd misstepped; like a punishment was just around the corner and she had to head it off before it got too bad. Lena's eyes widened and she stepped back to scrutinize Webby closely. Webby ignored her and the way her heart hammered in her chest. She wasn't with FOWL anymore. Why was that so hard to remember? Why was it whenever she fell into a defense mechanism, she automatically assumed something unpleasant was coming?

"You need to come home. We need to talk. Alone, Webby."

Those words always presaged trouble. Webby blinked, still not used to the bright light of day after the movie theatre's pitch darkness. She rubbed her eyes.

"I'm coming," she replied dully. She glanced over at Lena. "I have to go."

"Being ordered home?" Lena asked, sounding sympathetic. "You know where I am if you want to find me again, pink."

Webby hugged her and Lena hugged her back. She was reluctant to let go and face whatever punishment lay in store for her. She shouldn't have snuck out and she'd done it twice already. Moreover, she should have at least left an indication of where she'd intended to go. Then again, at least she'd told the truth about where she'd been and who she'd been with. That had to be worth something, right? In FOWL, it wouldn't have made much difference if she was caught where she shouldn't be. Webby stiffened, body taut with tension.

"Good luck," Lena bade her as Webby hung up. She walked away from her with regret and kept her head down. The mile or so to the manor felt like five miles and she was unsurprised to find the manor gates open and her grandmother waiting for her in the driveway. She was resigned to admonishment and physical punishment and was thus surprised when her grandmother hugged her tightly. She was so surprised that she didn't react normally and didn't push her away. A lump rose in her throat.

Mrs. Beakley held her at arm's length.

"I am not Agent 22 to you," she chided gently. "I am your grandmother. I am not the enemy. I will never hurt you, never. I will never manipulate or lie to you for my own benefit and I will never 'toughen you up' to prove a point."

While that was all well and good, she confessed she was confused where it was coming from. She blinked at her grandmother and Mrs. Beakley enfolded her in her arms again. Her grandmother was shaking and it dawned on Webby that she'd frightened her. Webby didn't know what to make of that either. In her world, adults lashed out when they were frightened. They concealed their vulnerabilities with anger and woe be unto anyone who crossed them in that state. But her grandmother was willingly letting her see terror. She was encouraging Webby to be open by revealing herself first.

"Granny?" she ventured and her heart thudded in her rib cage. "I'm sorry."

"And I'm sorry too. I saw Steelbeak."

Webby froze and pushed away from her. "You lied to me. You told me you were going to Cape Suzette. You went to see him with Mr. McDuck, didn't you? Why won't you let me go?"

"Because he isn't healthy for you. Because he uses you as a weapon and sees you as an extension of himself instead of as a separate person. Because in order for you to heal from what he did to you, I can't let you see him again, not yet."

Webby latched onto those last two words. Not yet. That meant there might be a time when she'd be able to see her father again. Nonetheless, she was irritated. She'd told her grandmother the truth and her grandmother had reciprocated by lying to her. True, she'd done it earlier and was coming clean now, but that didn't erase the fact she'd lied in the first place.

"I know it's hard for you to believe," Mrs. Beakley said. "But I'm older than you and I know better than you. He hurts the people he can't control. That's how he asserts his power over them."

Webby's throat tightened and she strove to find an example to prove her grandmother wrong. To prove that Steelbeak cared for her as more than a tool, a weapon in his arsenal. Tears pricked her eyes when, after a minute, nothing came to mind. Her grandmother was offering unconditional love and Steelbeak's love, such as it was, had always been conditional, contingent on what she did and how she did it.

"Do you understand?"

"He loves me," she said, refusing to accept the words at face value. "He must. He has to. He's my father."

"Did he ever say that? That he loves you?"

"Not...not in so many words…" she said and gulped. It felt like a large lump had formed in her throat and she turned her away to conceal her tears.

"I'm sorry I kept the truth from you. I want to be completely transparent with you. I want you to feel like you can trust me. Can you try to trust me, Webby?"

"Yes…"

She wasn't sure whether it was possible, but she supposed she had to try. Maybe she owed her that much.

"I promise you that when I feel you're ready, I'll let you see Steelbeak again," Mrs. Beakley said and scowled. Clearly, this was a concession on her part, but Webby appreciated it nonetheless. "Also, I would appreciate if you stopped disappearing from the manor whenever you felt like it and scaring me half to death. In the very least, I'd appreciate a note or a phone call letting me know where you are."

"Sorry," Webby said, a reflex. She wasn't sure whether she was sincere or not, but she was willing to bet "not".

"Please," she pleaded. "I don't like not knowing where you are. Steelbeak may be behind bars and I doubt FOWL has much of an interest in you beyond him, but after losing you for six years, almost seven, I assume the worst."

Webby's gaze fell and she had a sudden flash of memory.

"The flowers...in that park...we were going to a zoo, weren't we?" she said, lifting her head. "I ran ahead of you because I was impatient…"

"You remember that?" Mrs. Beakley asked, her voice a sharp inhale.

"Bits and pieces, it's coming back to me," she said. She remembered loving her grandmother and thinking that her grandmother was the best person in the world. She'd idolized her. After all, her grandmother was indomitable. She was the paragon of strength and fortitude. Nothing could get her down, not for long. The warmth that swept through her with those thoughts contradicted what FOWL had told her and the dichotomy gave her whiplash. She gasped, a headache forming.

"Webby?"

"It's like...when I try to remember...something stops me…" she gasped.

"We'd better get you in the house," Mrs. Beakley said and guided her up the driveway. "And I may need to have another discussion with Steelbeak."

Judging by the tone of her voice, she was not looking forward to it. Webby's eyes stung with tears and her head pounded. She didn't have it in her at the moment to be jealous. Her five-year-old self had been so happy and carefree and oh, how she'd adored Granny. Agent 22. No. No. Just because her grandmother was Agent 22 didn't mean she was any less awesome or badass.

A sharp pain lanced through her head and she bit back a gasp. What was going on? Her grandmother didn't need to know that remembering caused her physical pain. It'd be another thing on her plate. She shuddered, riding the stabbing pain out. Maybe she wouldn't notice.

Opening her watery eyes, she looked up at her. Granny had noticed and her beak was tight in a frown.

"A good, long talk with Steelbeak," her grandmother vowed. "And perhaps a gin and tonic to take the edge off first." 

* * *

Contrary to what she'd told Webby, she wasn't soused when she visited Steelbeak next. The vain rooster was preening himself in a mirror; she'd caught him stowing a cell phone prior to entering the holding area. Someone was sneaking his tech. She wouldn't be surprised if he was completing his business dealings from inside the cell thanks to outside help. Disgusted, yes, but not surprised.

"You're back," Steelbeak snorted. "What's the matter? Come for a nice little chat with your almost son-in-law?"

Mrs. Beakley bristled. She saw no reason in beating around the bush. Besides, Steelbeak was grating on her last nerves. She dearly longed to snap his neck but was holding herself back by sheer force of will. The sheer force of will and her employer's presence, which was meant to be a tempering influence, even if Scrooge was currently giving her a wide berth.

"You manipulated my granddaughter's memories," she spat. "Every time she remembers anything that happened prior to her kidnapping, she develops a headache."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said, staring her straight in the eyes. She would've been impressed by his capacity for lying while making eye contact, but she was too incensed to care. Scrooge laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Careful now, 22," he warned.

"You know. You must know."

Steelbeak shrugged. "Must've been something a FOWL scientist outfitted her with. I didn't keep an eye on her 24/7, 22. Not my fault she tangled with something she shouldn't have."

His blase attitude rubbed her the wrong way. Scrooge's grip on her shoulder was no longer an attempt at pacification, but a reprimand. Don't push things. If she didn't value her job and respect Scrooge so much, she would have ignored it. As it was, she quivered in outrage.

"You know. This is oddly specific. Why would you want to cause Webby more pain?" she spat the words out through a tight throat. "Haven't you done enough damage to the poor child?"

"There's no damage as long as she doesn't think about her past," he said and shrugged. "And if you hadn't burst in there to rescue the boys, there wouldn't have been a problem. If you'd left well enough alone-"

"If you'd left well enough alone, you never would've sunk your claws into Webby in the first place!" she snarled, bristling and puffing up like an enraged cat.

"Webby is my daughter," he said, giving her a long-suffering look like they were having a pointless conversation. "She belongs to me. You were wrong to keep her from me and I fixed the situation. No more, no less. You're worrying about nothing, toots."

"How dare you-"

"Beakley," Scrooge said. "You have what you came here for. It's time to step back and figure out a way to fix this."

"How do I stop the headaches?" she said through gritted teeth, her beak stiff.

"You don't. Not unless you return her to me and keep her from thinking about the past at all. That shouldn't be too hard, right?"

"Webby is never getting within a hundred feet of you ever again," she spat. Scrooge pushed her toward the door, which was more difficult than it sounded considering she had a good hundred and fifty pounds on him.

"C'mon, Beakley," Scrooge growled. "You have what you need. This isn't gonna help you."

"You can't let go of the fact that I've had Webby for longer than you have," Steelbeak shot. "That she's more mine than yours. She doesn't remember half of what she went through when you were her guardian. Even if she could remember before her kidnapping, there isn't much there. For all intents and purposes, lady, I'm her influence. Not you. Never you. You can't erase that, 22."

Scrooge yanked her harshly toward the door before she had a chance to muster a retort. In her stunned state, she was moveable and he brought her to the door and out of it. She was quivering, torn between despair and fury. Steelbeak was right, of course. He'd had Webby for her formative years. She was still growing and there was a chance they could change the trajectory, but it'd require a lot of work. Steelbeak had turned her toward criminal tendencies, among other things. That didn't worry her as much as knowing he'd warped her against Mrs. Beakley. And that was agonizing.

"Are you all right, Beakley?" Scrooge asked as they headed back to the limo. She hadn't spoken since they'd left the holding areas.

"No," she said. "I'm not."

"We'll fix this. I'll have Gyro figuring out what tech Steelbeak embedded in her skull and deactivate it. Don't worry."

And if he couldn't? She didn't dare utter that. She knew Scrooge had the utmost confidence in Gyro and, moreover, she was afraid of the answer. Steelbeak had prevented Webby from accessing old memories. Could he also prevent her from making new, happier ones that were linked to the old ones? She didn't know. And that was the most maddening part of all.

Launchpad was talkative on the way back and she ignored him. Scrooge brushed him off. Was Webby all right? Could the manor be triggering her headaches? They had to force Gyro into figuring out a solution ASAP. At the moment, Scrooge had called Gyro and told him the situation. Though the scientist didn't dare to be terse to his boss, he sounded upset Scrooge had blown off another invention in favor of this. But he didn't dare complain.

They stopped by the manor to grab Webby, who was currently staring at the TV without really seeing it. It didn't look like the headache had improved-if anything, it had gotten worse, judging by the pained expression on her face. She didn't make eye contact with her grandmother and only looked at Scrooge in passing, as if lingering hurt. Mrs. Beakley's ire rose and she swallowed it back with difficulty. She hugged Webby tightly.

The headaches would not help the girl trust her. They'd have the opposite effect, a deleterious effect. She could kill Steelbeak for that alone. It wasn't bad enough what he'd done and let happen to Webby. No, he had to actively punish both of them.

Mrs. Beakley smoothed Webby's hair back and they settled back in the backseat. Webby closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the smooth glass window.

"You all right, lass?" Scrooge inquired and Webby shrugged. She glanced back at him.

"I'll be fine."

It seemed Webby had learned from Steelbeak how to look someone in the face and lie to them. That was not encouraging.

"Steelbeak implanted a chip in your skull that would prevent you from recalling your past," Mrs. Beakley said. "Not without discomfort. We're going to McDuck Industries' labs to see whether Gyro can de-activate it."

"It can't be removed?" Webby asked and though she strove to keep her tone neutral, Mrs. Beakley detected a hint of stress.

"We dinnae know if it can be removed without hurting you further, lass," Scrooge said. "We can deactivate it first and then work from there."

Webby looked like she wanted to comment, shook her head, and resumed staring out the window. Her shoulders were stiff and Mrs. Beakley knew something must've been weighing on her mind, but she didn't trust them enough to tell them. Her heart ached for her granddaughter. She reached for Webby's hand and squeezed.

"How was he?" Webby asked when they were approaching McDuck Industries. "Steelbeak, I mean."

"Smarmy as usual," Scrooge said. "Doubtlessly running his criminal empire from his cell."

She nodded. "But is he okay?"

She balled her fists and unclenched them. When next she spoke, her voice was tinny, scarcely audible. "Does he miss me?"

Mrs. Beakley and Scrooge exchanged a look. She didn't know what to tell her. If she lied to her, Webby would resent it. If she told her the truth, that she didn't know or that Steelbeak was more preoccupied with himself, it'd inflict further trauma. They chose to stay silent and let the silence speak for them. Webby hung her head.

"Oh," she said softly. "I see."

They pulled into the underground parking garage. Launchpad opened the doors for them and Webby pulled her head up, shoulders back, and a mask fell over her features. Scrooge ordered Launchpad to wait for them in the lounge and then they headed up to Gyro's lab.

"You know, you can tell me anything," Mrs. Beakley offered.

Webby didn't speak. She stared at her reflection in the elevator's brassy panel as if it were fascinating. Or, perhaps, more soothing than speaking with Mrs. Beakley. Again, Mrs. Beakley looked at Scrooge, whose eyes narrowed at Webby's behavior.

"Webbigail, ye cannae keep all of it inside. It's not healthy," Scrooge said weakly, clearly trying to appeal to Mrs. Beakley but failing. Mrs. Beakley snorted with laughter.

"Really? You're going to lecture her about concealing her feelings after your falling out with Donald?" she reprimanded.

"That wasn't my fault!" he snapped.

The lab door opened to reveal Gyro and Fenton, the latter of whom was working on the Gizmoduck suit and lasering out scratches. Gyro glowered at him and then attempted a smile, which fell flat. Mrs. Beakley knew Gyro wasn't fond of children.

"Mr. McDuck!" Gyro said and Mrs. Beakley and Scrooge stiffened like they were children with their hands caught in the cookie jar. Mrs. Beakley recovered first and nudged Webby forward. Webby took one look at Gyro and her breathing went shallow.

"So you're the one FOWL captured," Gyro said and inspected her as if he could see the chip without assistance. Mrs. Beakley was more perturbed by Webby's reaction. The girl looked like she was one step away from fleeing.

"Hello!" Fenton said, rushing forward, perhaps sensing the tension. "I'm Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera and this is Gyro Gearloose. Welcome to the lab!"

"Yes, yes, welcome," Gyro said, waving his hand like pleasantries were wasteful. "Come in, come in."

"Webby, do you remember when they implanted the chip?" Mrs. Beakley asked, wondering whether that was the reason behind her granddaughter's sudden reticence and terror.

"No," she said, but she sounded less certain than before.

"Do you want anything to eat or drink?" Fenton asked, a more gracious host than Gyro.

"Don't be distracting," Gyro snapped at his intern.

"With all due respect, Mr. Gearloose, Webby looks like she's about to run for the door," Fenton said.

"I'm fine," Webby grated out. She plopped onto a stool and Gyro frowned, ignoring Fenton.

"We'll have to take a few MRIs, do a CAT scan of her brain, so we can find out where the chip is. I wish I could remove it and study it in depth, but if it's affecting her long-term memories, then removing it could impact her hippocampus," Gyro mused. "It'd be safer to deactivate it first, add a neutralizing agent, and then extract it. It can't stay in there-as long as it's there, there's always the chance someone could reactivate it."

Though he said this with scientific curiosity, Mrs. Beakley felt sick to her stomach. She hugged Webby to her and Webby flinched, pulling away. Her breathing remained short and hurried. Gyro was frightening her and she was trying not to show it.

"Maybe we ought to give her a sedative first," Fenton said in an undertone to Gyro.

"What? Why?" Gyro asked, genuinely baffled. Fenton and Scrooge gave Gyro looks that suggested he might want to rethink his current strategy.

"Because if you don't stop frightening my granddaughter, you will be very sorry," Mrs. Beakley snapped. "I assure you I have not lost my edge over the years."

Gyro swallowed hard. "Okay, duly noted. We'll see what we can do." 

* * *

Webby disliked Gyro; she barely knew him and she wanted to be far from him. He reminded her of the cold, analytical scientists at FOWL, though she knew that with Scrooge's and her grandmother's influence, to say nothing of Fenton, he was attempting to curb his normal proclivities. Fenton had administered a sedative, which kept her from fleeing the room and left her slightly drowsy. She'd permitted it because she was outnumbered and she didn't think she was capable of taking down Agent 22 right now, but it didn't help her overall impression of the situation. It also, unfortunately, wasn't helping with restraint. She didn't have the same careful control she normally had over her emotions and she could feel herself slipping.

"What if deactivating the chip damages my hippocampus anyway?" she blurted as Gyro glanced over her brain scans.

"It shouldn't, not unless the chip's become a normal part of your brain function," Gyro commented absently. "But since this stunts your capacity to develop long-term memories, I'd say shutting it down should have the opposite effect. The brain has enormous potential for healing itself and technically, the chip has created artificial brain damage."

He frowned. "But that brain damage should begin to heal once the chip has been turned off."

"What if it erases my memories altogether?" she protested.

"You mean a kill-switch?" Gyro said and ignored Scrooge and Mrs. Beakley frantically signaling him to shut up.

"Hmm. I suppose it's not out of the realm of possibility, though I don't know what use an amnesiac FOWL agent would have," Gyro mused.

"It's not going to come to that," Mrs. Beakley said. "Don't worry."

She shot Gyro a poisonous glare that the scientist missed, having turned his back on them.

"How likely is it?" she asked, fear trickling in through the sedative. "Percentage-wise?"

"Hmm...depends on how much he wanted to keep you by his side. I'd say at least 50/50, depending on his hold…"

Webby rose off the stool and would have fallen to the floor if her grandmother hadn't caught her. Panic was a rabid animal in her chest and it clawed at her throat. She flailed, struggling against her grip. She'd live with the headaches, debilitating as they were. The alternative sounded far worse.

"Gyro," Scrooge snapped, losing what little patience he'd possessed. "Do ye think ye can tell us more without scaring the wee bairn? Before she decides she's going to run for the hills?"

"I'm fine," she protested, but hysteria tinged her words.

"She asked a question and I answered it," Gyro huffed. "But fine. Odds are you won't lose your memories or be turned into a vegetable. Happy?"

"Gyro," Scrooge growled.

"What? I'm telling her the truth."

Anxiety fluttered in her chest and she flailed again only for her grandmother to hold her tightly. She stroked her hair. "Sssh. Sssh, you'll be all right, Webby. Calm down."

"A word, Gyro?" Scrooge snapped. He gestured for the others to leave and Mrs. Beakley had to carry Webby out, as she was too unsteady on her feet to walk. Mrs. Beakley bristled, glowering at the closed door before them.

"Webby, you'll be all right," Mrs. Beakley said. "Gyro may be a tactless idiot, but he knows what he's doing in the lab."

She swallowed, a lump in her throat. Mrs. Beakley resumed stroking her hair, which was oddly soothing. It also stirred a memory of her having a nightmare and her grandmother doing the same thing. The memory didn't hurt, though it was at a remove, feeling like it had happened to someone else. Webby closed her eyes, but opened them at the sound of a door opening.

Scrooge was at the other side and Gyro looked properly chastised. Fenton had turned his face away, perhaps to conceal his reaction.

"Now, we'll see what we can do," Scrooge said. "Ye'll be all right, Webbigail. I promise."

Webby didn't want to wonder what his promises were worth. Her mind flitted to Della Duck and she frowned. Somehow, she thought Scrooge might be fully capable of lying to protect someone, especially himself.


	12. Chapter 12

Webby returned to her bedroom with its too small bed and pulled her knives out from under the bed where she'd stashed them. She examined them under the fluorescent lights and tilted them this way and that. They needed a cleaning, but she didn't dare bring them into the bathroom with her in case Mr. McDuck had rigged the bathrooms. Something told her that was unlikely and an invasion of privacy besides. FOWL hadn't believed in privacy.

Looking at the knives was reassuring compared to what faced her. Gyro could obliterate her memories and possibly make it impossible to store new long term memories. She didn't think the damage would be that bad, but he frightened her. As she had countless times before, she stroked her knives and then caressed the hilts.

She clenched her eyes shut to stem the tears that threatened to fall. A knock came at the door, jarring her. Having a door was a novelty she hadn't quite gotten used to. Mrs. Beakley entered and Webby stashed the knives. She felt guilty for having swiped them from her grandmother, even if she'd needed them. Some people had security blankets and stuffed animals. She had knives.

"Webby?" she inquired. "Are you all right?"

Webby's throat was tight and she wasn't sure whether she ought to attempt a lie to deflect her and possibly deter any further questioning. Agent 22 seemed too shrewd to fall for that. Therefore, Webby remained silent and resisted the temptation to reach for and then fiddle with her knives.

"What do you have under there?" Mrs. Beakley asked and then reached around her. Webby reached for her knives to protect them and her grandmother sighed.

"You took them back. I deliberately took them away from you because it makes the boys nervous for you to carry them and you stole them from me."

"I didn't steal them."

"And now you're lying about it."

Webby stiffened. At FOWL, no one called her out on her lies. In fact, lying had been encouraged and theft expected. The rules had changed without notice and she was left in the cold. This wasn't fair. She hadn't asked for any of this.

"I...I'm not lying," she said, her first instinct to deny everything. Plausible deniability was something Steelbeak had instilled in her at an early age. She puffed up her chest and Mrs. Beakley glared at her.

"And now you're lying again. Webby...I know you've picked up a few bad habits, but I don't want you walking around with knives," she said in a quiet, firm tone. "And I especially don't appreciate your lying to me about it when it's obvious what you've done. Lying is not a good way to establish trust."

Webby's shoulders sank inward. She didn't hand the knives over, however. The feeling of security they imbued her with made her reticent to give them back to Agent 22. Mrs. Beakley stared at her and Webby stared back. She wasn't going to break this contest of wills, even if it seemed like the older duck was made of steel.

A few tense minutes passed and Mrs. Beakley held her hand out for the knives. Webby tried to think of Black Heron and commanded herself to keep her head up. She tried and failed, being the first to break eye contact, and dropped her gaze.

"I feel safer with them," she admitted. "And if Gyro's going to make mincemeat out of my brain-"

"He most certainly is not. I would never let him hurt you. I understand that you don't trust him, that you barely trust anyone. But I will repeat again what I've said. I want what's best for you. And what's best for you is neither holding onto those knives, nor lying to me, nor locking yourself up in your room."

Reluctantly, Webby offered the knives. She hoped that Mrs. Beakley wouldn't confiscate them but of course she did. Webby's chest tightened. It wasn't like she'd be able to slice and dice at Gyro but it was the principle of the matter. She'd be armed and he wouldn't be. Therefore, she'd be on a more level playing field.

"I'm putting these somewhere safe, where you can't get at them," she informed her. She put a hand on Webby's shoulder.

Mrs. Beakley settled in front of her. "You know you can come to me if you're upset, right? You don't have to hold it in."

She had no intention of confiding anything in her. Perhaps that much was apparent because her grandmother withdrew. She didn't, however, walk away. Webby felt like she was being passive-aggressive, which was a tactic she knew well from Black Heron. Then again, there was a possibility she was reading too much into this.

"Agent 22-" she started and Mrs. Beakley scowled. Webby tried again. "Granny. I'm fine."

And there was no possibility that she'd open up to her, at least not yet. Trust had to be earned and as far as Webby was concerned, she barely knew her grandmother.

"Maybe it would help if I told you more about myself and your mother," Mrs. Beakley suggested.

Since it was precisely this that had led to her discovering the boys, she found herself intrigued. She straightened up and then climbed onto the bed. It was softer and more comfortable than her previous one. She glanced up at her grandmother, who joined her on the bed. It creaked but held. It didn't hurt that the bed had a solid foundation.

"Your mother, as you've probably guessed by now, was named Wren. She met your father at a gala-she was supposed to gather intel for SHUSH and then disengage. Unfortunately, your mother was headstrong and determined to get whatever she could out of Steelbeak. She thought if she could prove herself worthy, then maybe SHUSH would trust her with bigger assignments and she could stop feeling like she was standing in my shadow. Therefore, at a time when she most definitely should have withdrawn, she chose to proceed.

"It seemed Steelbeak had also received information about SHUSH from his FOWL associates. He anticipated Wren and moved to block her. She had insisted I not attend the soiree. I remain convinced that if I had, what followed could have been prevented."

She paused, stroking Webby's hair. She pulled her closer to her and Webby could feel her grandmother trembling.

"I don't regret your hatching. I regret the circumstances that surround it."

Webby thought back to Agent 22's argument with Steelbeak. Her grandmother had accused Steelbeak of taking advantage of Wren. Webby had always been precocious and no one had bothered to shelter at FOWL. Therefore, she knew a great deal more about sex than her grandmother would've been comfortable with. She understood the implications, the words behind what her grandmother was saying. She stiffened.

"Wren awoke the next morning and fled. For whatever reason, Steelbeak decided to spare her and let her escape. Yet somehow, he'd kept tabs on her and knew about your existence. From there, he bided his time and, well, you know the rest."

She studied her grandmother's face. Mrs. Beakley was stoic, but did not equip the mask she associated with adults. Instead, Webby read deep sorrow in the lines in her face and in her heavy gaze. Steelbeak had claimed that love was a prison and unnecessary. Webby could see that her grandmother had loved her mother dearly, no matter their differences.

"Wren had always been...difficult. She and I never saw eye to eye. When she was younger, she always felt like she was suffocating under the rules I enforced and did her utmost to break them. That wasn't to say she wasn't a kind, decent person. She cared deeply about people and she strove to protect them. She loved fiercely. It was more that she didn't always think things through or realize what the consequences might be of her actions."

Webby thought of an objective way to describe Steelbeak. Steelbeak was determined too and could be cruel, but he was also protective over the ones he cared about. Or perhaps, that was more like possessive and thinking he could control them. Things never felt clear to her. She had meant what she'd said about not wanting to go to Duckburg. As mixed up as she was about her father, he was still her father. That was still the only life she'd known.

"After your hatching, your mother vanished. She's been presumed dead for the last eleven years. It'll be twelve on your birthday."

Webby's throat was tight. "Do you think she's still alive?"

"I do. I refuse to believe that someone that stubborn could have let Steelbeak win without a fight. But I assume he's only mentioned her in passing to you?"

She nodded.

"That was...that was why I was wandering FOWL HQ that night," she admitted. "I was looking for the Archives and I ended up in the dungeons where I heard the boys."

"If it hadn't been for you, we might not have found them," Mrs. Beakley breathed and then hugged Webby tightly. Though she cringed, it was a shorter reaction than it'd been before. She latched onto her grandmother too and her throat was tight.

"I...I might've belonged there, but they didn't."

"You didn't belong there. You belong here, with us, with your true family. I know you still feel guilty about what you did to Black Heron. But it was self-defense, Webby. And after all the terrible things she's done, the world is better off without her."

"But…" she whispered, "I didn't mean to kill her."

"No, you didn't," she agreed. "You meant to disable her and to prevent her from attacking you. Your training took over."

She rubbed her back. "I know you're a good person, Webby, despite everything that's happened. If you weren't a good person, this wouldn't bother you so much. You have a good heart."

Webby stared down at the floor. "Black Heron said I was weak for showing mercy. That it was going to get me killed. She tried to attack the boys and I knocked her out."

Her grandmother was studying her in turn. "What do you remember about the Duck triplets?"

"Not much," she admitted. "I remember having flowcharts and doing extensive research on them, but what the results of that were, I don't know."

"You know, those things are probably still around here. I never threw anything out after your disappearance. You might be able to recover your old research. Or you could ask them yourself."

Or, rather, she could if she didn't mind the ensuing headache. The thought put a damper on any relief she might have felt over her grandmother's words. Her shoulders sinking, she gazed about the room. Her grandmother hadn't thrown anything out, so far as Webby could tell, although she'd tidied in here. Doing so must've caused her considerable distress, too.

"We should probably go shopping for another bed and new clothes," her grandmother said with a small smile. "This is a bit cramped for an eleven-year-old girl."

She was grateful that her grandmother couldn't read her thoughts.

"Besides," she continued, "When was the last time you've gone shopping?"

Webby smiled weakly. "I've never been shopping."

Presents, clothes, and tools for her had appeared at HQ. She never had a choice in what she wore or played with. Instead, she took what was offered to her and she was grateful for it because she had no alternative. Shopping was a foreign concept to her.

"You might enjoy it," she said and then frowned. "It'll be a time when you're out of the manor and I can keep an eye on you, as opposed to your running about Duckburg without alerting anyone."

She felt mildly guilty about that, but not enough to apologize. For all that Mrs. Beakley had claimed that Webby was a good person, she still didn't believe it. Perhaps it was because she had a lot to unlearn. Or perhaps it was because, in her heart of hearts, she still felt she belonged at FOWL HQ with the murderers, thieves, and liars. A lifetime of training was not going to erase that in one afternoon.

* * *

As it so happened, the boys needed clothes too. Dewey was enthusiastic, Huey just wanted to make sure that whatever he got had pockets for his JWG related stuff, and Louie couldn't care less. To Webby's surprise, Scrooge had offered to foot the bill. It might have been a gesture of goodwill after Webby's return. The boys didn't find it suspicious, but she did. She had been trained to look for ulterior motives everywhere.

As a way to ensure the boys' good behavior, her grandmother had promised to let them visit Funso's ("where fun is the zone!"), including Webby, after they were finished. She didn't know who or what a "Funso" was. Moreover, she didn't know what sort of "fun" they were proposing. To her, fun was curling up with a good book and avoiding anyone that might do her harm. It was being secure, unassailable within FOWL HQ, and well, if she was being perfectly honest, it was also sharing a movie with Lena. This was all strange and unfamiliar territory for her. She didn't know how to handle it.

Launchpad drove them to the mall, which was its own adventure. Traffic was heavy on a Saturday, especially since the surrounding town had blue laws that prevented shops from opening on Sunday. As a result, everyone had flocked to the mall today. She wasn't looking forward to the crowds. FOWL HQ had been sparsely populated by comparison. Seeing all of those people was enough to make her want to turn around and leave. However, that would be showing weakness. And she didn't want the boys to think less of her.

The mall was also loud and distracting. There was a candy shop near the entrance and her mouth watered. Other than the occasional treat she had snuck from the kitchens, sugar was a rare delicacy. Before she knew it, she and the boys were wandering over the candy shop, which advertised candies from all over the world. She didn't really know or care about the distinction. She just wanted some.

"We are not here to get sweets," Mrs. Beakley said with a groan. Launchpad joined the kids over at the candy shop.

"Aw, why not?" he asked. "We have to have money for treats!"

"Launchpad, might I remind you that you are a grown man?" Mrs. Beakley said, sounding like she was suppressing a groan.

"I am?" he said. "That's news to me."

"It's news to the rest of us, too," Louie muttered and Huey elbowed him in the ribs. Launchpad was peering over at the twisted peppermint sticks and Webby whined. She wanted one. She wanted one of everything. There were chocolate figures as big as her!

"Aw, man, there's a chocolate flavored Pep in here, too," Louie said, heading toward the fridge at the back.

"We are not here for sweets!" Mrs. Beakley protested, but she sounded like she was fighting a losing battle. There were, after all, five children here if you included Launchpad. Her ability to control them was falling by the wayside.

"Just one?" Webby pleaded, batting her eyelashes.

"All right. One for each of you. But that's it."

Twenty minutes later, each kid (including Launchpad) had a bag of candy. Happy and feeling like a sugar high was imminent, she bounced along. Her good mood had returned and she was excited to be in a new place, among strangers, and allowed out into the world. She walked in between Dewey and Louie while Dewey pointed out all the strange things and gave her instructions and Louie studied his phone.

"Don't make eye contact with the merchants," he warned. "As soon as you do, it's like they smell customers. They'll be on you like a tick on blood."'

"Oh my gosh, it's a bookstore!" she whooped and rushed toward it without thinking. She dragged Dewey along with her and she bobbed up and down on the balls of her heels. "We have to get books!"

"We can get books later," Mrs. Beakley said.

"Or we can get them now and read while we're walking!" Webby cried. She couldn't help it. She'd never seen so many books available before and they could be hers if her grandmother bought them. She wouldn't have to worry about sneaking them back to the archive before they were missed or concealing them in her room because she wasn't supposed to be reading them.

"If you read while you're walking, you'll walk into something," her grandmother reprimanded.

"Books are boring," Launchpad opined. "I've never read a book in my life."

"Not even your instructional manuals? Or your flight school textbooks?" Dewey asked.

"Textbooks?" Launchpad replied, nonplussed. "What are those?"

"That explains a lot," Louie muttered. "Though it doesn't explain how he's capable of getting off the ground."

"I was born to fly," Launchpad proclaimed. He pivoted. "There's a toy store across the hall!"

"You are supposed to be helping me supervise," Mrs. Beakley groaned. "I should have asked Donald to come instead. This is impossible."

She turned to Webby. "We will get books later. I promise. Clothes now. Look, there's a Gap for Kids right next to the bookstore."

"How about if I tell you my size and I can go in the bookstore while you shop for me?" Webby suggested. It was all the same to her. After all, it wasn't like she had picked her outfits out for herself before. And books were a lot more important than clothes, in her opinion. You could only wear clothes. You could live in books.

"And we can go into the toy store and you can shop for us too," Dewey added.

"Fine," Mrs. Beakley said, looking put out. "I had wanted to go into the bookstore too-"

"So we'll all go now and then get clothes later," Webby said.

"If there is a later at this rate," her grandmother grumbled.

Nonetheless, she and her grandmother entered the bookstore while the boys went off into the toy store. Webby didn't know where to start. The sugar rush had hit her and she wanted to look at everything at once. She could speak and read several different languages. Should she get a book in another language? What kind of books did kids like her read? What was even her reading level? Oh, there was Shakespeare. She liked him. Oh, and there was a book about dinosaurs time traveling!

Her grandmother put a hand on her shoulder and steered her toward the children's section. Webby lingered there for a few minutes before growing bored with the simplistic writing and heading over to the adult fantasy section. A few books looked too gory for her, but a couple piqued her interest. She grabbed them and walked back over to her grandmother.

"Can I get these?" she asked. Mrs. Beakley sighed.

"All right," she said. Webby whooped and her grandmother smiled.

"It's good to see someone enthusiastic about books," the cashier said.

"I love books," Webby said and then leaned into the counter. "So much."

Once the books were paid for, she tore off toward the clothing store. The sugar rush meant she didn't want to sit still, not for long. Therefore, she impatiently waited for her grandmother to select outfits for her and the boys. The boys weren't finished with the toy store yet, but since none of them had any money and Launchpad was in arrears to Scrooge, they couldn't buy anything, only look.

Unless, of course, Louie had snagged Uncle Scrooge's credit card, which she wouldn't put past him.

When they walked out, they met the guys again and Louie was staggering under boxes of toys. Mrs. Beakley scowled.

"Fine. You be the one to tell Mr. McDuck that you squandered his fortune on things that are 'batteries not included'," she snapped.

"I will," Louie said and then headed over to Webby to mutter, "Once I come up with a good excuse."

"Where to now?" Webby cried.

"We should get lunch," Huey said.

Mrs. Beakley sighed, clearly hoping that she might be spared further time in the mall. Reluctantly, she trooped over to the food court. Webby's beak dropped. She'd never seen so many different types of food in one place before. Like when she'd entered the candy store, she was overwhelmed. She wanted to try them all.

"We're eating at Saladworks," Mrs. Beakley announced. Salad? But that was boring. She wanted the cheesesteaks and cinnabons and…

"No more sugar for you," she said. "You're already hyper as it is, Webby."

She pouted. "I'm fine. Can I get a Cinnabon?"

"No."

Webby huffed but reluctantly let her choose a small salad for her. They settled down and Webby glanced over at the boys' food with jealousy. Dewey offered her fries and she beamed at him, thanking him before accepting.

"After this, we are going home," Mrs. Beakley announced. "No more surprise visits to stores."

"That's cool," Louie said without looking up from his phone. He ate his cheesesteak without looking at it. "I'm busy with this anyway."

"Isn't the mall awesome?" Dewey asked and Webby nodded emphatically.

"That's one way to describe it," Mrs. Beakley groaned. "Another way would be 'chaotic'."

"You really like reading," Dewey said.

"Reading lets me escape," she said. "I never really wanted to be at HQ...and I didn't have to be there when I was in a book."

She realized a beat too late that this was confessing more than she'd given before. Abashed, she concentrated on her salad.

"You wouldn't be normal if you didn't want to leave a place like that," Huey said.

"I'm not normal," she protested and her stomach twisted. Suddenly, either the sugar high was ending or she was feeling guilty for having admitted so much.

"No, you're Webby," Dewey agreed. "That makes you awesome."

Surprised, she turned to him. "What do you mean?'

"You kick butt and take names. How cool is that?" he asked and she flushed, ducking her head, oddly pleased with the compliment. Dewey smiled at her and she smiled back.

"Hmm," her grandmother said with a small smile. "Perhaps this wasn't as much of a disaster as I thought it was."


	13. Chapter 13

Webby was satisfied and excited despite not going to Funso. She had new books that she could keep, new clothes, and candy. Even on her birthday, she'd never done so well. Bouncing along with the triplets, she entered the manor with a grin on her face. This was the best day she could remember having and she rushed to her bedroom to safely stow her things. She promised the boys that she'd be back as soon as possible.

When her gaze fell upon her knives, which Mrs. Beakley hadn't removed from under her bed despite admonishing her for having them, her smile faltered. Taking her bags, she placed the candy deliberately over the knives and put the books on her bed. Her new bed was coming in a couple of days, but that didn't bother her. She was too excited to care about minor inconveniences.

Flouncing out of the room, she met the boys in the sitting room. They were watching Ottoman Empire, which she had no real interest in. Nonetheless, she curled up against Dewey and he smiled at her. To her surprise, she smiled back. For some reason, she felt comfortable around him, like it was okay to touch and be touched by him. It, too, left her brimming with happiness.

"You really like to read, don't you?" Dewey asked. "I've never seen a kid our age that enthusiastic about books."

"Reading is amazing," she said. "We didn't watch much TV in FOWL HQ. Steelbeak thought it would rot my brain."

That was ironic, considering he'd installed a chip in her brain that affected her cognitive functions. Her mood soured slightly, but she refused to let it puncture. She wanted to be happy, she realized. She'd had precious little of it before and she wanted to make up for lost time.

"How do you live without TV?" Louie exclaimed. "TV and the internet are, like, the cornerstones of life. You poor deprived child."

"I had books," she said defensively. It hadn't occurred to her that books might be inadequate by comparison. Judging by Louie's expression, she might as well have said she subsisted off bugs instead of food.

"That doesn't count," he informed her.

Webby huffed at him and pulled out a book, one she hadn't paid for. No one but her knew she'd stolen it and got it past the security cameras. One of Webby's first lessons in criminality had been how to fool security cameras. She didn't need to steal it-her grandmother would've bought it for her, she knew-but old habits die hard.

While the boys watched TV, she buried herself in the book. She'd never read straight fantasy that wasn't skewed somehow. FOWL didn't believe in acquiring books for the pleasure of reading them. Most fiction within their archives served a purpose, to educate people on how not to behave.

"What did you do for fun?" Dewey asked and, reluctantly, she lowered the book. Experience had taught her how to tune out background noise, but she wasn't used to people speaking to her. About her, yes, and acting like she wasn't present. Involving her in conversation was new.

"I read. I attacked test dummies," she said and then smiled weakly. "I also trained in the gym."

"You must've been lonely," Dewey said.

"Oh, yes," she said, staring ahead and seeing not the TV but her sparse living quarters. Louie shushed them and Dewey huffed back.

"Let's go do something else," Dewey said and she was surprised. It sounded like he would rather spend more time with her than watching TV. Someone had actually chosen her over something else. Blood rushed to her cheeks and, as they exited, she impulsively hugged him. Dewey, surprised, hugged her back.

"You okay?" he said quietly.

She nodded, smiling at him. He reciprocated.

"What did you want to do?" she asked, rocking back and forth on her heels.

"Have you seen the whole mansion? I know you've been sneaking out to see Lena," Dewey said. To her relief, there was no judgment in his voice, just observation.

"I haven't been in the mood to tour the mansion," she admitted. "I keep feeling like I'm trapped."

"You're not," he said and held her hands. Everyone was so much more hands-on, literally, than she was. She wasn't used to casual touching. It awoke the touch-starved part of her and she found herself wanting to keep him around, even if it might not be wise. Maybe she could trust him. Or maybe that was desperation talking.

He smiled at her again. "I'll give you the grand tour. And then we can sneak out to Funso's."

She beamed back and mourned when he released her hands. Running to her room, she put the book on her nightstand and returned to his side. Even if she wasn't sure she was all that interested in her surroundings, she was interested in how Dewey presented it and the attention he paid her. She craved it.

Besides, she hadn't had any interaction with children her age until she'd freed the triplets.

"How did you end up captured by FOWL, anyway?" she asked, realizing no one had told her. "And why?"

"Probably because Uncle Scrooge's been an ancillary agent to SHUSH forever," Dewey explained. "Him and Mrs. Beakley. Maybe they were stupid enough to think Uncle Scrooge would pay our ransom. If they thought that, they really weren't that bright. Uncle Scrooge didn't get rich paying ransoms.

"As for how, it was stupid. Like, really stupid. We were messing around on the streets in the bad part of town and the Beagle Boys nabbed us."

Webby snorted. "The Beagle Boys? The criminals that couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag? Those Beagle Boys?"

In FOWL, the Beagle Boys had a bit of a reputation. Steelbeak and others used them as a running joke; if someone did something particularly stupid, then it was worthy of the Beagle Boys. It had even been turned into a verb, as in, "You Beagle Boy'd this." When she was younger, she hadn't thought they were real. She'd thought they were made up for the joke.

"Yeah," Dewey said, embarrassed. "They got the drop on us."

"You really don't know how to defend yourselves?" she asked, frowning. "Anyone who can fight at all can knock them to the curb."

"We weren't trained to fight. We're normal kids, Webby."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "What's wrong with being trained to defend yourself? It looks like if you'd been, you wouldn't have gotten captured."

"They got the drop on us," Dewey repeated, sounding defensive now. "It wasn't our fault. Anyway, I know they wanted to ransom us, knew that Uncle Scrooge wouldn't agree to it, and they were trying to figure out if they wanted to torture us or kill us slowly to get him to agree."

He shuddered, perturbed. "Can you imagine that? That they would kill kids?"

"Black Heron killed a SHUSH agent in front of me," Webby replied. "Because I refused to kill him, she did it. That's what led to my...my...accident."

Dewey stopped and Webby halted a few feet away. "You've seen people die?"

"Haven't you?" she asked, cocking her head at him curiously. "At FOWL, Steelbeak said it was a rite of passage."

"Um, no, it's not. How many people have you seen die?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't keep count."

Dewey was staring at her in a way that was beginning to make her feel uncomfortable and regret she'd opened up to him. She backed up, wishing she had her knives again. It was easier to stab problems and hope they went away than face them head-on. She was socially awkward and knew it. This, however, transcended "awkward". Dewey was judging her and he looked intimidated. It hurt; it felt like he was rejecting her.

"I don't need a tour," she decided.

"Webs. Wait," he said, seizing her hand before she had a chance to walk off. They weren't that far from her room, only a hallway away. "I'm sorry. I can't imagine what it was like to grow up there."

A mask fell over her features. She didn't need a mirror to tell. Pushing her emotions to the side, she projected ice. Though she wanted Dewey's touch, she didn't care for him right now. His hand on hers burned and she yanked hers away.

"I shouldn't have said anything," she said.

"Webby," he entreated. "I'm sorry, okay? Don't run away."

Steelbeak was right. She belonged in FOWL, not with them. How could she have ever thought otherwise? She mentioned one little thing and Dewey was aghast. All the happiness she'd felt rushed out, leaving disappointment and betrayal in its wake. She was stupid. She'd thought he'd seen her differently.

He grabbed her shoulders. "Don't push me away."

"I only killed one person," she said and her tone was flat. "Don't act like I'm a monster."

"I'm not. I'm stunned because I can't believe someone would subject a kid to that. That they would kill people in front of you. Kids like us are supposed to be protected. We're supposed to be kept from the bad stuff."

"I'm not a 'kid like you'," she said, her tone dripping ice now. "I never was."

"Shit. None of this is coming out right."

He ran his fingers through his swoosh and she studied him. Her heart hammered in her chest; this was the first time she'd heard one of the triplets curse and it was oddly reassuring. They'd cursed all the time in FOWL HQ; this was almost normal.

"All I meant is that I'm sorry you had to see that. I'm sorry that Steelbeak and Black Heron put you through the wringer. I want to be friends, Webby."

It was on the tip of her tongue to deny she needed friends. Lena's face flashed through her mind. Lena understood far better than Dewey what Webby had gone through, even if she'd prevaricated on her past. Lena wasn't a "normal" kid any more than Webby was.

"You saved us because you knew we didn't belong there. You knew you were miserable. You belong here, with us."

Gritting her teeth, she shook her head. She didn't feel like she belonged here. Earlier, she'd said that she felt confined by the manor. This was why. Everyone here was good, kind, and compassionate. None of them would've swiped their knives back and then lied about it or shoplifted from the mall because they could.

Frustrated by her lack of response, he kept talking.

"He hurt you, didn't he? If Steelbeak had cared about you, he wouldn't have pitted you against Black Heron."

"He did what he thought was best for me," she said, lifting her head and glaring at him defiantly. "He was honing me into a perfect weapon."

"You're not a weapon. You're a kid, Webs. This isn't-none of this is normal. Listen to me. I'm sorry I upset you. I don't think you're a monster. I think you did what you had to do to survive a bad situation."

She lowered her head and he tilted her head up with his fingers.

"Don't you think I wanted a normal life?" she burst out. "For a week after reading about reincarnation, I kept hoping that I'd be reincarnated into a normal family. It didn't happen."

"Don't you have to be dead first?"

She gave him a flat stare and his jaw dropped.

"That's...kinda dark for an eleven-year-old…"

She shrugged.

"I survived. I did what I had to, as you said. Don't judge me."

"I'm not, I swear." Dewey held his hands up defensively. "Can't we go back to what we were doing before? I like hanging out with you. You're fun to be around and I know you were having fun too. You can trust me. I won't tell the others what happened if you don't want them to find out."

She released a shaky breath. "Okay."

"Okay, what?"

"Okay, I'm sorry." She had nothing to follow that up with, however, and her gaze dropped again. He hugged her suddenly and she gasped, surprised by the affection. She didn't flinch as she had before. Instead, she hugged him back and her throat tightened.

"Let's go," he said, releasing her again. "Try not to freak out on me again, okay?"

"I didn't freak out," she said and then nudged him. She offered him a weak smile and he grinned back. Relief flooded her. It was odd. In a way, Dewey was almost like a mirror of her, in a different way than Lena. It felt good to be around him too.

"Good."

Her heart rate slowed down and she accompanied Dewey about the manor. In another strange turn of events, she no longer felt quite as confined with Dewey at her side. 

* * *

She shouldn't be spying on her granddaughter through the security cameras. If Scrooge hadn't been otherwise occupied, he would've reprimanded her for it. However, she found herself craving any and all glimpses of Webby. In less than a week, it would've been the seven year anniversary of losing her. And Webby was so different from what she'd imagined she'd be.

For one thing, she was rather prickly. For another, she was quick to shut down and push people aside. It made her heart ache to know what the villains had put her through. It was good that she could communicate with Dewey, even that too was fraught with tension. Dewey, for all that he wasn't as bright as his brothers, had a better emotional IQ than they did. His perceptions of her moods and self-defense mechanisms were well-suited to her.

Gyro wanted to scan Webby's brain and she'd have to tear her away from Dewey sooner or later, but she was reluctant to do so now. Webby had relaxed again and was even attempting to be light-hearted. As she watched her, she glanced at the book that Webby had left on her bedside table. Normally, Scrooge disabled the security cameras near the bedrooms (they were out in the hall and not in the rooms themselves) to enable more privacy.

She hadn't bought Webby that book. Frustration flared. Webby must've stolen it. Steelbeak teaching her granddaughter to shoplift wasn't surprising, but it was irritating. It was another bad habit she'd have to break her of. When she'd last seen Webby, at age five, Webby was a terrible liar. Now she could look her grandmother in the face and lie to her. Of course Steelbeak had taught her all the wrong things. Mrs. Beakley sighed, exasperated.

Deciding not to dwell on it, she switched back to the camera showing her granddaughter and Dewey. She'd also noticed how touch-deprived Webby was. In the grand scheme of things, that was a minor vexation compared to what Steelbeak had done to his daughter's mind, but it was still on her list. He'd treated her like a test subject when it pleased him; Webby was soaking up Dewey's attention and casual touching like a desert flower in the rain. It stung Beakley that Webby could respond so well to him and so poorly to her grandmother.

Any progress was good progress, she supposed. In a way, the boys' presence in FOWL had broken whatever illusions Webby had constructed about her life there. They had helped her realize she could escape. Unfortunately, the devil you knew was often more tempting than the devil you didn't and Webby at least knew and understood how FOWL operated. McDuck Manor came with its own rules and requirements she didn't comprehend. She could understand Webby's desire to return to the "normal" world of villainy, even if she lamented it.

Dewey usually initiated touch; Webby would reciprocate, but she seldom started it. Fear still radiated about her and when Mrs. Beakley collected her for her appointment with Gyro, it would return in full swing. She hated that this was necessary. Sighing, she decided she had best intervene now before she was tempted to blow it off. Launchpad and Mr. McDuck would be waiting for her.

A thought occurred to her; perhaps she could invite Dewey along. It might improve her mood if she had one of the boys with her. While Gyro wasn't good with children, Dewey seemed to be good for Webby. It shamed her to think that Dewey (and Lena) fared better with Webby, but she would take every advantage that she could.

She found Dewey and Webby near the Other Bin and she cleared her throat. The two spun about, startled and guilty, and Mrs. Beakley inclined her head toward them.

"I'm sorry to interrupt this, but we've got somewhere else to be," she said. "And you two shouldn't be around this Bin, either."

"Yeah, that would explain why Uncle Scrooge was always trying to chase us off from here," Dewey said.

"Where are we going?" Webby asked, suspicious. The good cheer on her face vanished and Mrs. Beakley grimaced. She hadn't meant to raise her granddaughter's guard again.

"To McDuck Industries' lab," she said. "I'm afraid that we need to do a brain scan on Webby's mind."

"Wait, what?" Dewey said, frowning. "Why?"

She hadn't expected Webby to tell Dewey about it, although she wished there was a better way to bring this up. Webby's suspicion mounted and a shuttered look came over her features. She was keeping herself from getting hurt by shutting them out. It ached.

"Steelbeak wanted to ensure she couldn't remember her past before she entered FOWL HQ," Mrs. Beakley sighed. "So he had his scientists manipulate her mind accordingly."

"I'm fine," Webby huffed. "I don't want him poking around in my mind."

"He won't hurt you," Dewey said. "I mean, yeah, he's kinda abrasive and I don't understand half of what he says, but that doesn't mean he doesn't really care about what he's doing."

"He's a scientist," Webby said flatly. "He doesn't care about anything except results."

"He's not going to hurt you," Mrs. Beakley said and Webby scoffed.

"That's what Steelbeak said too," she muttered.

Mrs. Beakley bit back a sharp retort. Of course she didn't trust her. After all, they barely knew each other and Webby couldn't recall anything before the age of five. It was only natural for her to fear and distrust her. To equate her with Steelbeak hurt. She was nothing like that cretin.

"I'm gonna have to side with Mrs. B on this one," Dewey said. "I mean, Gyro's a bit...extra...but he's not gonna hurt you. Steelbeak did whatever he could to keep you by his side, even if it meant that he had to, you know, do evil things."

Webby's gaze flicked between the two of them and she wished she knew what her granddaughter was thinking.

"What if I lose my memories?" she asked archly. "What then?"

"You won't lose your memories," Mrs. Beakley said with more confidence than she felt.

"You have no proof that I won't," she retorted. "You heard what Gyro said. There's a 50/50 chance that Steelbeak put a kill-switch in my head and it'll wipe my mind."

"He was conjecturing," Mrs. Beakley said and scowled, wishing that the damn scientist hadn't said that. He was putting ideas in Webby's head that she didn't need right now.

"So, what if he's right?" she shot back. Webby's voice, despite her expression, was strained and on the verge of hysterics.

"Gyro wouldn't let anything like that happen to you and neither will we," Dewey said calmly. "He's probably going to take a scan of your brain to see what'll happen if he does something. He won't do anything until he has a plan."

Oh, thank God for small miracles. Dewey's calmness might penetrate Webby's fear.

"On the other hand, a lot of his inventions turn evil…" Dewey mused and Mrs. Beakley's relief evaporated. In its place came a strong urge to smack him. Webby quivered.

"Evil?" she repeated in a small voice.

"This chip isn't sentient on its own," Mrs. Beakley said. "It cannot be evil or good, it is an inanimate object."

"Well, so's Lil Bulb and-" Dewey started and Mrs. Beakley cleared her throat.

"Lil Bulb is a robot. This is completely different," she said and then knelt by Webby's side. "Webby, I promise you nothing bad will happen."

"What if it does anyway?" she burst out.

"Then I'll do whatever it takes to get you back to how you should be," she answered.

"How I 'should be'? Or how you want me to be?" Webby charged. She backed away and Mrs. Beakley again glimpsed the stark terror in her eyes.

Had Steelbeak used her as a lab rat? That was the only explanation for Webby's anguish. Dewey wrapped an arm about Webby's shoulders and Webby threw him off. Thankfully, Dewey landed on his feet. Webby was shaking.

"Calm down," Dewey said, holding his hands up.

"In the history of everything, has anyone ever calmed down when they were told to?" Webby snapped back.

"Well, no," Dewey said.

"Exactly. I rest my case."

"What I meant to say, Webby, is that you'll be the person you were supposed to be before Steelbeak put that chip in you. You won't be any different or modeled into whatever anyone else wants you to be. I know that's what she's thinking too."

"...oh," Webby said, deflating. "I don't really have a choice in this, do I?"

"Would you rather have the skull-splitting headaches?" Mrs. Beakley asked.

"I don't know," Webby said and balled her fists. "I don't know which would be worse."

"It won't come to that," Mrs. Beakley said. "Please...I'm only doing what's best for you. Not for me."

"Where have I heard that before," Webby grumbled, but allowed herself to be led away. Her head was down and she had withdrawn into herself. Mrs. Beakley suppressed a sigh. Small victories were better than none, she reminded herself.

With any luck, Webby's worst fears wouldn't come to pass. Unfortunately, she feared luck wasn't on their side.


	14. Chapter 14

Gyro found Webby's predicament fascinating, much to Webby's unease. Mrs. Beakley stood by her granddaughter's side, along with Dewey. Again, they'd needed to sedate Webby, this time to keep her pliable to perform the brain scan. Gyro was currently inspecting the scan, though he was no doctor. Instead, he was studying how the chip had become embedded in Webby's brain and what the implications of turning it off and extracting it was.

Thus far, Mrs. Beakley could determine that the chip must've been installed not long after Webby's arrival at FOWL. Growth around the chip suggested that it'd be difficult to remove it without causing irreparable damage. At best, they'd be able to shut it off and disable it completely. Mrs. Beakley didn't want to risk removing it and damaging Webby's hippocampi.

"I can shut off the chip remotely," Gyro mused. "If I can figure out the frequency the chip operates at, I can produce a counter-frequency and render it inert. But if you want me to remove it…"

"No, it's too risky," she said and laid a hand on Webby's shoulder. Webby's gaze was glassy and she swayed on the stool. Dewey steadied her.

"There's still a chance that knocking it out will trigger a chain reaction," Gyro warned. Mrs. Beakley wasn't sure how much of what he was saying Webby understood in her current state. Dewey, however, looked like he comprehended enough for this to be problematic.

"If she persists in trying to remember the past, she'll hurt herself," Mrs. Beakley argued. "Who knows if the pain won't mount and trigger something anyway?"

"True," Gyro said, looking curious. Mrs. Beakley was disgusted, even if she knew this was scientific curiosity and not personal. Webby cringed and pushed away from the stool. Mrs. Beakley smoothed back her hair and rubbed her back in a soothing manner.

"It'll be all right, Webby."

"I'll have to neutralize it one way or another," Gyro commented. He lifted Webby's head to look into her eyes and she flinched, pulling away and scrambling off the stool in her need to move away. Gyro frowned.

"I haven't even done anything to you," he said, baffled.

"She doesn't trust scientists," Mrs. Beakley said. "At least, I think that's it. She hasn't told us much."

"Fenton!" Gyro snapped and spun around. Confused, Mrs. Beakley watched Gyro, grumbling, hunt out his intern. Fenton was above them and frowning at a chalkboard full of equations. Without warning, Gyro yanked him away, dragged him down the stairs, and halted him before Dewey and Webby. Webby lifted her head to regard Fenton. The sedative must've been wearing off, which wasn't good. The last thing she needed was for Webby's terror to fully blossom and for her to decide to bolt.

"You're better with kids," Gyro said, sounding exasperated. "Can you explain to her that I'm not going to hurt her? Every time I try to talk to her, she freaks out."

"Well, what have you said?" Fenton said and smiled at Webby. Webby didn't smile back, although her shoulders loosened. Huey was friendly with Fenton; perhaps he'd told her and that explained her tendency to trust Fenton, albeit minutely. Had Webby trusted anyone in FOWL? It didn't seem like it. It seemed like every attempt to earn trust was hard-won.

"I told the truth," Gyro scoffed. "I told her that there's a chance Steelbeak implanted a kill switch in her brain and that she might lose all her memories. Or be unable to create new ones. There's also the possibility that the damage could spread to other parts of her brain, including her personality."

That was enough for Webby. She jerked away, attempting to run, but Dewey and Mrs. Beakley held her firm. Dewey was giving Gyro a dirty look and Webby flailed, kicking and punching. Fortunately, her blows missed, but she was still struggling for all she was worth. The panic evident on her face was like an arrow to the heart.

"For all of our sakes, could you please keep your scientific opinions to yourself?" Mrs. Beakley spat. "Before you give Webby a heart attack."

"It's unlikely that it'll alter her personality," Fenton said. "And I doubt Steelbeak or his scientists thought far enough to put a 'kill switch' in her mind. They probably wanted to ensure she couldn't remember her past but didn't think anyone would ever discover what they'd done to her."

"That's ridiculous," Gyro scoffed. "It's more likely that-"

"If you are going to say something stupid, might I suggest you keep it to yourself?" Mrs. Beakley growled.

Webby's eyes were wide and her gaze flicked between the two scientists. Her breathing grew shallow and she balled a fist on her thigh. Mrs. Beakley could feel her trembling.

"We'll take good care of you," Fenton promised and knelt so he was eye-level with Webby. "I promise. You'll be okay."

"You can't-" Gyro started, waspish, and Mrs. Beakley's look promised pain if he continued that sentence. Hastily, the rooster swallowed it back.

"I know it's hard to trust anyone after what you've been through," Fenton continued in a soft, pacifying voice. "I don't blame you. And I know Doctor Gearloose isn't making it easier. He's trying to help. We all are. We don't want you to be miserable."

Webby swallowed hard.

"It'll be okay, Webby. You'll be all right. I personally guarantee it. Well, as far as I can," he said and smiled weakly. "I can't promise everything will be exactly the same, but it should be better. Okay?"

After a long pause, in which Mrs. Beakley elbowed Gyro to prevent him from making another untimely and unwanted outburst, Webby nodded. She grabbed Dewey's hand and held it.

"It'll take a couple of days to create a radio that can broadcast at the same frequency as the chip," Gyro said. "I'd love to be able to study the chip at length, but it's too dangerous."

"I won't turn evil like Lil Bulb did, will I?" Webby asked in a tremulous voice.

"Lil Bulb isn't evil!" Gyro objected.

"He is a little bit," Fenton corrected, gaze averted.

"He's misunderstood!" Gyro cried, outraged. "He's not evil."

"You won't turn evil," Fenton said, sensing that this conversation wouldn't go the way he'd like. He squeezed Webby's free shoulder. "It'll enable you to access your long-term memories without inducing headaches. And you can create new ones that, if linked to the old ones, won't also create headaches. It'll work out, Webby."

She nodded, looking wan. Mrs. Beakley had a strong desire to hug her but stifled it with difficulty.

"You believe me, don't you?" Fenton asked quietly.

Webby faltered and then, after a minute, nodded again. "You're Huey's friend...you're not evil."

"That's right," he replied. "You'll be okay."

"Okay," she said and drew a deep, staggering breath to brace herself. She also met Fenton's gaze. "I guess I can trust you. Or at least try."

Mrs. Beakley felt like they'd jumped over a hurdle. Gyro looked irritated and she ignored him. Webby promising to attempt to trust someone was big, even while she loathed what Steelbeak had put her through. She hadn't flinched when Fenton touched her, either. Maybe they were making improvements, but it'd take time.

She was cautiously optimistic.

"With that said, I'll need time to work," Gyro said. Forcing a smile that looked strained, he said, "So I'd appreciate if you all left."

Fenton started to follow them and Gyro yanked him back. "Not you. I need you."

They walked back to the limo, where Launchpad was waiting. Webby's gaze was down the entire time; her shoulders were stiff and she barely responded to inquiries. She moved whenever Dewey tried to touch her. Mrs. Beakley suppressed a sigh.

"Hey," Dewey said when they got into the limo and Mrs. Beakley rolled up the divider to prevent eavesdropping. "You okay?"

"Fine," she lied.

"What did the scientists do to you at FOWL?" Dewey said, oblivious to the tension radiating from her.

"Nothing," she said sharply, clearly hoping he'd drop it. She hunkered down in her seat.

"We're the good guys. You know that, right?" Dewey pressed. "We don't hurt people. We don't whip them or manipulate them. You can trust us."

She drew a deep, bracing breath and then looked over at both of them. "That's easy for you to say. You don't have to worry about losing your memories."

"Technically, haven't you already lost memories?" Dewey said. "You can't remember anything without it hurting."

Webby hesitated. For a minute, it looked like she might confess to something, such as fear, but the instant passed. "That's different."

"How?" he challenged.

Webby shook her head and Mrs. Beakley sensed there was more she kept to herself. She seized Webby's hand and squeezed.

In a quiet voice, so low that she had to strain to hear, Webby replied, "Because I don't know who I am without my memories."

She raised her head defiantly as if expecting them to contradict her.

"How can you know who you are when you can't remember anything before you were five?" Dewey countered.

Webby deflated, but she didn't pull away. "It doesn't matter who I was back then. I'm better now."

"You were a child," Mrs. Beakley retorted.

"And now I'm not," Webby said.

"You're still a kid," Dewey replied, nonplussed.

Webby shrugged, disagreeing but not wanting to make an issue out of it. Clearly, something else was bothering her more and she'd rather focus on that than this. Her gaze slid out the window, though what she could see through the tinted windows, Mrs. Beakley didn't know.

"Maybe," Webby said.

"No, you definitely are," Dewey argued.

"You're a kid and I can prove it. Take us to Funso's, Launchpad," he called, forgetting the divider was up. Mrs. Beakley groaned.

"I told you-I don't belong there. It's for regular kids," Webby said, her expression pinched.

"And I'm telling you that you do," he said. "Who are you going to believe? A regular kid like me or you?"

"What about your brothers?" she said.

Dewey grinned. He'd won. "We'll stop at the manor and bring them along."

"I'm not certain that this is wise," Mrs. Beakley said.

"She deserves to have fun," Dewey replied. "It's not her fault she's been trapped in FOWL HQ for over half of her life."

Mrs. Beakley scowled. She'd rather keep Webby somewhere that she could watch her, but if she kept setting limits, Webby would rebel again. Reluctantly, she nodded. Dewey beamed at both of them and Webby flushed, flustered.

"All right, but only until dinnertime," she said.

"So…" Webby said in a would-be casual voice. "What's a Funso?" 

* * *

Mrs. Beakley was drained and cleaned the manor with a light hand. Duckworth had already complained and she'd been tempted to flip him off if she'd believed in such a crude response. Instead, she glowered at his back. In her pocket, her phone vibrated and she feared, for an irrational moment, that Steelbeak had kidnapped Webby again and this was her only alert. With trepidation, she answered.

She almost hung up. A robotic voice intoned the same numbers over and over. The weird thing was that she'd heard of numbers stations, but SHUSH had never used them. She'd never heard of a numbers station contacting a particular person, either. Yes, they were traditionally used to contact spies, but in a more passive way, as in the spy would retrieve the information through the numbers issued on the radio during a one-time broadcast. If the person didn't hit the right frequency at the right time of day, then their code would be lost, rather than risk its re-transmission falling into the wrong hands.

By the third or fourth iteration, she realized the numbers weren't meaningless. They were coordinates and a time. The coordinates corresponded with a particular location in Duckburg and the time was this afternoon. She finished her perfunctory dusting and noted that Scrooge was locked up in his office. He wouldn't notice if she was gone for a while. Besides, who would tell him? Duckworth? Unlikely.

Ensuring that she had the numbers memorized, she took care not to write them or otherwise leave them in unsafe hands. Seeing as the boys were all at Funso's, Scrooge was preoccupied, and Launchpad was who knows where, she thought it safe to skip out. As she had no desire to almost perish, she decided to walk to the coordinates, which weren't that far, anyway. It would be a brisk, one-mile walk and from there, another half a mile after taking a right. It wasn't the bad part of town, at least. Right nearby would be a Hamburger Hippo.

As she walked, she thought. Who would leave her those numbers and why? What was the purpose behind this? If they had wanted to attract her attention, they had done so. That was not an issue. Yet she failed to comprehend why this particular spot, out of all of Duckburg, was significant. Still, it wouldn't hurt to check it out.

Wariness mixed in. Perhaps she should have told someone that she was going out. If she vanished from this spot, no one would know why or where she had gone. She had no desire to be kidnapped (though she imagined most people didn't).

Glancing at her hip pocket, she considered taking out her phone and calling Webby. No, she didn't want to disrupt her activities. Mr. McDuck was preoccupied too and she frowned deeper. Maybe she ought to consider having friends rather than a granddaughter that didn't trust her and work associates.

Once she reached the designated area, she paced. It was a park bench a few hundred feet from the Hamburger Hippo, which meant that if someone did snatch her, she was at least in public and could make a scene about it. Of course, that assumed she couldn't defend herself. (Then again, she hadn't protected Webby and she'd blamed herself for it ever since).

To her surprise, a figure materialized in front of the bench. It hadn't been there before, she was quite certain, and it wore all black. It was impossible to determine age or gender, only that it was about her height and of normal weight, possibly, depending on how much the trenchcoat and hat obscured. It beckoned her with a crooked, gloved black finger.

There didn't appear to be anyone waiting in ambush, but that didn't reassure her, considering how the figure had appeared out of thin air. With trepidation, she approached the bench and the figure offered her a small, folded note. As she stared at it and the figure, she wondered whether she might have been looking in the wrong direction and the figure had been there the whole time. That would make far more sense than the person teleporting to the spot. She didn't know of any teleporters in existence and surely, if there were such a device, SHUSH would have it.

Not that she was an active member of SHUSH anymore, but she still knew a thing or two about the organization.

"Excuse me," she said primly. "But who are you?"

The figure didn't speak. Instead, it gestured toward the note as if that explained everything. Mrs. Beakley was unwilling to take her eyes off the figure long enough to look at it. Instead, she scowled back. It would be the height of rudeness to swipe the hat off and push down the figure's collar, though she was sorely tempted. The figure looked irritated by her delay, judging by the set of its shoulders and the glare she could feel emanating from beneath the hat.

Attempting to look at the figure while unfolding the note at the same time, she saw familiar handwriting on the lined paper. The printing was in flourishes, the wavy cursive showy and rushed at once. Mrs. Beakley hadn't seen that handwriting in over a decade.

Of course, simply because she had the handwriting didn't prove its newness. This note could have been written twelve years ago and only conveyed to her now. It contained more coordinates and another time; this time, the coordinates pointed to the Audubon Bridge and the time was three hours from now.

"What is this?" she demanded. "Some kind of joke?"

The figure didn't respond and Mrs. Beakley reached out, her patience withering. "Answer me."

The figure shook her off, straightening out its trench-coat, and stepped back. Though it contained to maintain its silence, she sensed disapproval. Very well. If the figure and whoever it was associated with wanted to play this game, she supposed she had ample time to play along. If, however, they thought they would continue it indefinitely, she had another thing coming.

The figure walked away and Mrs. Beakley let it. She held the paper up to the sun to determine whether there was more information she was missing; perhaps there was but she didn't have the right materials. Huey would probably know, though she wasn't going to ask a child for assistance. Whatever this was, it was far too dangerous to enlist a child. If anything happened to him, she wouldn't be able to forgive herself. After all, the triplets had been like surrogate grandchildren while Webby had been missing.

Dinner would probably be rushed as a result, but she had no intention of missing this meeting. It was at five p.m. and she had several hours to kill. While she was tempted to look in on Webby, she knew Funso's didn't permit adults to enter, not unless they acted in a supervisory capacity. Plus, the more she hovered about Webby, the more Webby would chafe at the restrictions. She hated it. She hated not being able to see where she was, although at least she knew she was relatively safe. No one was going to assail Funso's.

Deciding she had better find chores to occupy her time, she returned to the manor and continued her desultory way of cleaning. Duckworth, seeing her distraction, teased her for a while before it became apparent she had no indication of reciprocating. Then, shrugging, he went back to whatever he did when he wasn't pestering someone in the corporeal world. Ghost business, whatever that was.

When the appointed hour came, she was ready at the bridge. This time, however, she had left a note and was armed. The wind blew in her face and she couldn't help but recall that it was three days until Webby's twelveth birthday. Should anything happen to her, she might spend another birthday in Steelbeak's clutches. That was unacceptable.

A person was approaching her with flyaway blonde hair ill-concealed beneath a hat. Mrs. Beakley recognized the shape beneath the trenchcoat was belonging to the person that had approached her earlier, but the blonde hair was a surprise. Then the figure stopped before her, whipped off the hat, and smiled at her. Mrs. Beakley stumbled backward.

"Hello, Mother," Wren Beakley said.


	15. Chapter 15

Mrs. Beakley was instantly on guard. Although she had seen neither hide nor feather of her daughter in the past twelve years, she suspected a trick, especially with Steelbeak's recent mischief. She whipped out a blade and Wren snorted, hands on her hips. She approached and Mrs. Beakley's eyes narrowed, keeping her distance. She didn't dare get her hopes up. In her hip pocket, her phone vibrated and she ignored it. Should she require assistance, she'd answer. By that time, she prayed, she wouldn't be in such dire straits that she'd be unable to make or receive calls.

"You're being awful cold, Mother," Wren said, frowning but also halting her forward progress. "You're acting like you don't want to see me."

"I find it strange that you send me a missive to meet you here, in the middle of nowhere, instead of contacting me directly. You know where I reside. You could have easily found me in public, too. Why the subterfuge?"

"I had to ensure you were still up on your game."

Wren shrugged and glanced down. When she looked up, her beak was quivering but she swallowed hard, past it. "You lost my daughter, Mother."

"You act as though I did it on purpose," Mrs. Beakley retorted. "And how do you know what happened?"

"Just because I dropped off your radar doesn't mean I've been out of the loop," Wren scoffed. Her gaze roved the busy bridge and then back to her mother, as though Mrs. Beakley might be concealing Webby beneath her dress.

"Where is she? Where's Webbigail?"

"She's with friends."

Wren rocked back on her heels as if she'd said that Webby had jumped off the bridge. In the past, Wren used to don high heels. Now she wore sparkling pink flats. Her hands were shaking and she shoved them in the trench coat pockets.

"How do you know what befell her?" Mrs. Beakley repeated. She'd found Wren, or whoever she was, to have produced an unsatisfactory response. She was clearly concealing something. How could she possibly have known where Webby had gone? SHUSH would have told her if she'd been in contact with them. Or would they? What if that was a safety protocol since Mrs. Beakley's security had failed?

No, she didn't want to think about that possibility. Her eyes narrowed.

"I have my sources."

"Not good enough. And since when do you care about her? You abandoned her egg to my care. I was there when it hatched. I took care of her. You were gone, Wren. If you really are Wren Beakley."

Her lower beak curled in disdain.

"Mother, I've been hiding from Steelbeak for twelve years, ever since I realized I'd laid a viable egg. Did it ever occur to you that to establish contact with you, especially after Webby's kidnapping, would have exposed me too?"

"You still haven't answered my question."

Wren shuddered, pulling her coat tighter about herself. "I spoke to Darkwing, all right? I know you hate him and have no use for him. He was sympathetic. Gosalyn is Webby's age."

"Darkwing Duck couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it," Mrs. Beakley sniffed. "Try again."

"He's kept Gosalyn pretty well hidden."

"That is entirely beside the point."

"The point is, Mother, that you had Webby and you let her get kidnapped. The whole point of changing her last name, of having her with you, was to prevent her from falling into Steelbeak's clutches."

Mrs. Beakley bristled. "You think I don't know that? Do you think I permitted Webby to end up at FOWL? That I wanted it? And stop trying to change the subject."

"You don't believe that I'm really your daughter. That's why you're giving me the third degree," Wren said, sounding exasperated. "Then again, you'd give me the third degree anyway, considering how fractious our relationship was before Webby hatched.

"How can I prove I'm who I say I am?"

Mrs. Beakley assessed Wren. "Where did Webby's surname come from?"

"Vanderbilt," Wren answered immediately. "It was a derivative of that."

"And how old were you when you met Steelbeak?"

"Twenty-two," Wren said flatly and shuddered. She balled her fists inside her jacket and drew a deep, staggering breath to brace herself. It seemed she was working at calming herself down. Wren's eyes flashed.

"I'm thirty-four now. Or will be in a couple of months. Mother, where is Webby?"

"I'm not divulging that information so quickly," she responded. "Even if you are Wren, I don't know if I can trust you around her."

"It's important," Wren insisted. "It's about the chip."

Mrs. Beakley froze. "How do you know about that?"

"I've been working undercover with FOWL for seven years," Wren admitted, looking askance. "I had to keep an eye on her somehow, Mother. I reported to SHUSH and Darkwing, but mostly SHUSH. Steelbeak didn't recognize me because I kept a low profile."

"What do you know about the chip?"

"You've found it, then," Wren said and grimaced. "Then you know how dangerous it is."

Mrs. Beakley was getting awfully tired of receiving the run-around from her daughter. They advanced until they were close enough to embrace, though Mrs. Beakley had no intention of touching her. She was still stung that Wren had remained incommunicado for twelve years and was only now revealing herself. Yes, they'd had their disagreements, but Wren was Mrs. Beakley's only child. Surely that had to count for something.

"What do you know about the chip?" Mrs. Beakley repeated. "I grow tired of this circular conversation, Wren."

"Have you tried to remove it?"

Mrs. Beakley shook her head. "Not yet. We're not certain it can be done without adverse effects."

"Steelbeak implanted it with a very specific goal in mind," Wren said and gnawed the inside of her cheek. She was still shaking and no amount of shoving her hands into her pockets would conceal it now. While Mrs. Beakley wished she'd spit it out, she also experienced mounting dread. She had the feeling she wasn't going to like what her daughter was about to say.

"It can't. Have you tried anything yet?"

"She received a full brain scan."

"So you haven't done anything. Good. I'm here just in time."

Mrs. Beakley scowled. "In time for what?"

"You can't remove the chip without dire consequences."

"Such as?" Mrs. Beakley said.

At that precise moment, a loud truck horn issued. Looking irritated, Mrs. Beakley searched for the source. A tractor-trailer was heading their way and it was being driven by Eggheads. The dread she'd experienced earlier amplified and she glanced at Wren, who had paled. She thrust her behind her; the Eggheads usually packed heat and while she wasn't one hundred percent convinced this was Wren, a large part of her was. She'd gotten her granddaughter and daughter back. She had no intention of losing either one of them again.

"They're looking for me," Wren said in an undertone. "Come on."

And, before Mrs. Beakley had a chance to object, she tugged her off to the underside of the bridge. There was a walkway beneath her, which was good because for a half a minute, she'd been afraid Wren was about to send them falling to their deaths into the bay beneath them. The walkway shuddered as cars and trucks rushed by above them. Mrs. Beakley's beak chattered.

"How do you know they're looking for you?" Mrs. Beakley demanded.

"Really, Mother? Who do you think kept Black Heron from killing Webby all those years? It wasn't out of the goodness of her heart," Wren hissed.

"You really expect me to believe-"

"I don't care what you believe. Where are Webby and her friends?"

"Funso's."

"You'd better show me where that is. That chip can be activated remotely and if the Eggheads are here, they might have received instructions from Steelbeak on how to do that. We'll have to move fast."

"I assume you don't have time to tell me what will happen if the chip is activated by them."

"No, but you can probably take a stab at it anyway," Wren said and shuddered. "It's not good."

"I gathered that," Mrs. Beakley said dryly. Nonetheless, her stomach churned. Should she have left Webby alone with the boys at all? Or had that been a terrible mistake? And what would happen when the chip was activated by them? She'd promised Webby she'd be all right. The last thing she needed was another reason for her not to trust her.

Despairing, but not letting it show, she chased after Wren, who was slimmer and quicker than her mother. Mrs. Beakley refused to let that slow her down too much. There were bigger problems than who could beat the other in a relay race.

She scooped her phone out of her pocket, as it was vibrating again, and this time, the voice in her ear didn't sound robotic at all. It sounded, rather, like an Egghead and it cackled with glee.

"Look up," it intoned and Mrs. Beakley halted, having been attempting to ascend the stairs. Wren looked back, annoyed at her halting, and then she noticed what her mother was looking up at. The blood drained from her face.

"Oh, no, oh, no, no," Wren said. "Webby!"

The lack of knowledge was irritating, but she got the gist of what was happening, regardless. The Egghead had halted in the middle of traffic to produce a large red button. As his eyes slid from mother to daughter, his grin grew wide.

"Steelbeak sends his regards," he intoned. Wren bolted for the truck with Beakley not far behind. The truck's engine revved and it raced off, far faster than it should've been able to considering the truck's size. The switch flew out the window and Wren lunged for it.

It bounced off a couple of cars before landing ignominiously on the road, where a motorcycle ran it over. Wren groaned, cursing up a storm. She returned to her mother and she was shaking, but with fear or fury, Bentina couldn't tell.

"We need to get to Funso's," she said. "And hope we're not too late." 

* * *

Webby had been in the middle of exploring the ball pit when mind-numbing pain lanced from one temple to the other. Groaning, her mouth filling up with blood, she crawled out and collapsed onto the floor. In an instant, the triplets were beside her. She remained unaware of them. Her vision flickered in and out and she gasped out the blood. It was so thick and disgusting in her mouth that it sent chills down her spine.

It felt like someone was squeezing her memories in a vice grip and then, all of a sudden, it stopped. She rose slowly to her feet, looked around, and it was like all of her emotions had flown out the window. She assessed the situation coldly; the Duck triplets didn't pose a threat, nor did anyone else in here. Without a word, she moved toward the door.

"Woah, woah, wait," Huey said. "Where are you going? What's going on?"

She had to find and immobilize Agent 22. Then, from there, she was supposed to reconnaissance with Steelbeak. True, she wasn't where she was supposed to be, but the objective remained the same. All of her memories prior to her kidnapping were now concealed and, too, so were her emotions. Dewey grabbed her by the wrist and she snapped it.

"What the hell is going on?" Louie demanded, looking at her warily. Dewey was crying with the sudden pain she'd inflicted.

He looked into her eyes and then flinched. She didn't know what he saw, nor did she care. However, something told her to look into a nearby reflective surface anyway, out of mild curiosity. Her expression was flat and her eyes were ruthless, devoid of any hint of compassion or concern. She shrugged it off.

"This is bad," Louie said. "This is very bad."

"Gyro said she might have a kill switch," Dewey managed in a high pitched voice, though he was having a hard time talking through the tears in his eyes and slipping down into his beak.

"And it killed her limbic system?" Huey exclaimed. The eldest triplet had other worries than Webby's current state. "Dewey, we need to get that set."

"This isn't Webby," Dewey insisted. "This is what Steelbeak put in her head."

"It sure looks like Webby to me," Louie said, backing up and moving out of her way. Huey grabbed Webby's shoulders and she threw him off her. She had no time for delays and that's all the boys were. A postponement to her rescuing her father.

"Webby, listen to me," Dewey pleaded and then did his utmost not to move too much. "Ow. Crap. Webby, I know you're in there. You'd never hurt us normally."

It felt like something in her had ground to a halt at his words, but none of it showed on her face. Instead, she muscled him away, stormed out through the door, and dashed along the boardwalk. She noted that pursuit was not forthcoming, at least not now, for which she was glad, in whatever limited capacity she had for that now. Dewey's face, tear-streaked and in pain, flashed in her memory and she shunted it away. Dewey had gotten in her way. That was all.

Should she pursue Agent 22 first or retrieve Steelbeak? On the one hand, Agent 22 had evaded punishment for far too long. On the other, Steelbeak's incarceration had to be remedied. Webby faltered, running through the scenarios and their likely outcomes in her mind. She heard footsteps on the boardwalk coming toward her and she assumed an offensive position. Like hell she was going to be taken off guard.

The triplets were attempting to catch up, though they were hampered by Dewey's injury. She put on an extra spurt of speed. Her father needed her. All other options could wait until later. Besides, her father knew how to pull one over on Agent 22. She could use the assistance.

"Webby, wait!" Huey pleaded. "This isn't you! I know it's not!"

She stopped and felt an odd pang of something when she looked at Dewey. It wasn't guilt. She knew that. When she met his eyes, she winced. She didn't apologize, however, nor did she let her gaze linger too long on the injured triplet.

"How do you know?" she replied coolly.

"Because you're just a kid. Like us," Huey argued, seeming to have taken Dewey's side in this.

"Or she's a sleeper agent," Louie said, catching up to his brothers. "You saw her eyes. They're dead."

Impatience crept over her again. Other footsteps seemed to be approaching, too, and she spat out blood. As she did, chills besieged her too and her head pounded. Whatever this was, her brain was fighting it and she had a strange sense of dissonance like she was two separate people shoved into one. The other half of her was too distant to feel anything, but the split was enough to immobilize her.

The triplets caught up to her and she was panting, having fallen to her knees.

"We need to get her home," Dewey said.

"We need to go to the hospital," Huey objected. Dewey touched her hand, regardless of her injuring him previously, and she realized her vision had gone blurry. Tears streaked her cheeks and she wasn't sure why she was crying.

"I don't think she can feel her emotions anymore," Huey remarked. "She knows what she's doing is wrong, but she's powerless to stop herself."

"And we're lingering here why?" Louie snapped.

"Right," Huey said. He looked reluctant to leave her, however. After a moment of indecision, he turned to her and she rose to her feet. Wiping away the infernal tears, she glanced at them briefly before running away again. They let her go. Dewey's health was more important and besides, they were only distractions.

She swiped at her face again and spat out more blood. The headache had returned, its incessant thudding like a counterpoint to her heart. She didn't know what to think of the situation, so she shunted all unnecessary information to a mental back burner. Her steps picked up as she found herself getting closer to the Duckburg Police Department. There, she should be able to contact an Egghead and break her father out.

* * *

They were too late and Dewey was more concerned about Webby than himself. By the time they found the boys, they had managed to call Launchpad for a ride to the hospital. Mrs. Beakley had decided to stay at the ER, despite her better judgment, and leave Wren to tackle Webby. Mrs. Beakley was Agent 22 in Webby's mind and Wren remained a relative unknown. She might be able to immobilize Webby long enough for them to bring her to McDuck Industries' lab and work from there. It was a thin hope to hang onto, but it was all Bentina had.

The boys told her all about Webby's strange transformation and then her tears. It sounded like she no longer had access to her long term memories (again) and couldn't properly process reality. After ten minutes of quizzing them, she was pacing back and forth. There wasn't much she could do for them and she was champing at the bit to get to Webby and Wren, no matter how ill-conceived a notion that was.

Thankfully, Scrooge appeared, which meant she had something else to focus on. Unfortunately, the news was not good. Gizmoduck had been deployed near the DPD because an explosive had taken out the jail attached. An explosion that had somehow missed Steelbeak...and now Steelbeak was missing.

Not only were they two steps behind Webby, but they were also falling further behind even faster. It was galling. And worrying too. If they didn't find her soon, this personality change might become permanent


	16. Chapter 16

Mrs. Beakley might not know where her granddaughter had gone off to, but Wren did. She'd placed a tracker on Steelbeak seven years ago that the vainglorious rooster hadn't rooted out. It was inside of his beak and she was grateful for it now. Steelbeak and Webby were headed out of town and Wren was hot on their heels. Her heart pounded, knowing that Webby wasn't herself and that she was dangerous. She also knew that whatever happened, Steelbeak would exult in his supposed victory.

She'd seen Webby grow up, albeit from afar. Webby had no idea that the strange woman who came in to clean her room and keep an eye on her was actually her mother and Wren had intended to keep it that way. Now, of course, she had no choice. If she was going to appeal to Webby, long enough for her to accompany her back to McDuck Industries, then she had to reveal herself and hope for the best. Her hands shook on her motorcycle. She'd spent twelve years avoiding Steelbeak and seven of those twelve in close proximity to him. Tipping her hand was terrifying.

She revved the engine, just for something concrete to have beneath her hands, and weaved in and out of lanes to keep an eye on the white truck that Steelbeak and the Eggheads had rented to break him out. Webby was in the passenger seat and every once in a while, Wren caught a glimpse of her hair blowing in the wind. Her heart threatened to stop thinking about how close Steelbeak was to her daughter.

Not their daughter. Never theirs. Wren's daughter, Mrs. Beakley's granddaughter.

They would have to stop to refuel soon, which was when Wren intended to make her move. Webby wouldn't recognize her on sight; she'd been careful to keep away from the limelight. It didn't help that Webby resembled her and would've been able to tell something was up. This was another reason to keep her from seeing any photographs of her mother.

The motorcycle ran on both solar energy and gasoline; given the bright sunshine filling the afternoon sky, she should have plenty of energy for miles. Nonetheless, it was grating on her nerves that it took another four hours before they stopped to refuel. Bugs flew into her mouth, the wind battered at her hair, and her hands grew numb on the handlebars. This was why she hated motorcycles, but they were more maneuverable than cars.

She pulled up behind the truck as one of the Eggheads stepped up to start the pump. Steelbeak was sitting in the front seat beside Webby and Wren reached for her knockout gas. There wasn't time for a prolonged fight. Webby's gaze flicked toward her and she sprayed the gas in a wide radius, hitting the Egghead, Steelbeak, and Webby. Unfortunately, by spraying so much, she'd diffused it, which meant she had a limited amount of time to get the hell out of here before someone roused.

She yanked the door open on Webby's side, caught her daughter before she collapsed onto the ground, and cradled her as she climbed back onto the motorcycle. They had at most five minutes, which meant she had to be out of here in less than that.

SHUSH's latest invention created a temporary stickiness along with her suit that would force anything to adhere to it for a few hours. That was enough time to get from here to Duckburg. Anything more and she'd be pushing her luck if she wasn't already.

"Who the hell…" Steelbeak slurred and she chanced a glance at him. His eyelids fluttered. "Wren?"

He remembered her. Of course he remembered her. She was the mother of his child. If Steelbeak was rousing this early, that didn't bode well for Webby or the Egghead. She secured Webby to her chest, revved the engines, and kicked off the kickstand.

At once, the back of the truck opened up and Wren cursed. There were five more Eggheads sitting in the back and, unlike Steelbeak, Webby, and the one at the pump, these weren't immobilized. There were too many for her to handle and keep a grip on Webby. Webby moaned and she hugged her. It was the first time she'd ever done so and she feared it might be the last.

The Eggheads produced guns and she kept Webby in front of her like a shield. She felt guilty about it, too, but knew they wouldn't dare shoot her if they didn't want to risk hitting Webby too. The Eggheads knew how Steelbeak felt about her. Hell, everyone in FOWL knew Webby's place.

"Let go of her," Steelbeak ordered, leaving the truck. He was shaky on his feet and leaned on the truck for support. "She's my daughter."

"She's mine too," Wren snapped. Webby was stirring, eyelids fluttering, and Wren debated the merits of simply taking off anyway. The problem was that there were too many Eggheads and the chance was too great that she'd get shot in the back. She couldn't risk it. She'd need to surrender...but she didn't want to.

"She belongs to me. I own her," Steelbeak growled. Wren placed a trembling hand on her daughter's head. Webby groaned and Wren put the kickstand back up. She stopped the motorcycle and stepped away, still cradling her.

"Take them both," Steelbeak ordered. The Eggheads moved as one and five guns were trained at her head. They pushed her back into the truck's bed and she sat with Webby on her lap. Steelbeak joined them and snorted, looking from mother to daughter. Wren's arms tightened about Webby.

"Did you really think you were gonna pull one over on me?" Steelbeak scoffed. "I run this show, capiche? You amuse me, though, thinking you can take Webby away."

Webby twisted in her embrace and their eyes met. Webby's gaze widened and she reached a trembling hand to touch her mother's face. Whatever activating the chip had done, this was generating more curiosity than the emotionless state she'd been subjected to. Her beak quivered.

"Mom?" Webby whispered.

Tears shone in her eyes, but Wren knew the chip's peculiarities and knew that Webby wasn't feeling connected to her emotions. She cuddled her close.

"You're being too soft on her," Steelbeak scoffed. "She's already killed Black Heron. She needs a firm hand."

"She is a child," Wren snapped back. She couldn't help but notice that the Eggheads continued to train their guns on her. Sweat trickled down her back and her feathers stood on end. She wished she'd seen Webby hatch. She wished she'd been able to be closer to her than just a glance in the distance. For all that she'd pretended to be aloof, she loved this child. Her Webbigail.

"She's not a child," Steelbeak refuted. "She's my baby. She's a killer."

Steelbeak moved forward, the spray wearing off, and tugged Webby away. Webby, to their shock, was clinging to Wren and not because of the adhesive on her suit, which she hadn't activated. Even if Webby wasn't in complete control of her senses, she intuited enough to know that Wren meant her no ill will.

"Let go of her," Steelbeak said from between gritted teeth. "Or I might lose my temper. She's just an obstacle, do you understand? An obstacle between you, me, and running FOWL. Let go."

"I've waited for seven years to find out who my mother was," Webby said, her voice trembling. "And now you're going to take her from me."

Either the chip was malfunctioning or Webby was overriding it. Though her words were relatively emotionless, the quivering gave her away. Maybe if she wanted something badly enough, she could fight the chip for dominance. The triplets hadn't had an emotional impact on her, but this did. She wanted her mother badly.

"Your mother is an enemy agent," Steelbeak said. "She would betray you in a second, Webby."

Webby gazed at her steadfastly. Wren could feel her longing like it was a tangible presence between them. Steelbeak scoffed and pulled on Webby's arms. If anything, Webby tightened her grip. It was a little painful, to tell the truth, but she wasn't complaining.

"No," Webby growled. "I'm not going anywhere and neither is she."

Steelbeak sighed. "Fine. Take them both. As soon as you get the chance, lock Wren up. I don't want her anywhere near Webby."

With his orders issued, he left the truck bed and returned to the front seat. The Eggheads lowered their guns, as keeping them up had to have been taxing, and the truck started before taking off again. Webby's gaze met hers.

"Mom?" she said softly.

"Yes?" she said, thrilling in being called that.

"What took you so long?" Webby said flatly.

She couldn't very well tell her that she'd been there all along. For one thing, that would blow what was left of her cover. For another, the Eggheads were listening. So she shifted Webby in her lap and eased back against the wall. Webby studied her.

"I never left," Wren whispered, figuring that, at least, was safe.

"I don't believe you," Webby retorted and released her. It felt like a stab to the chest and Wren bit back a gasp. There was a partition between the front and the back of the truck and Webby opened it, slipped inside, and rejoined her father in the front seat. The Eggheads returned their guns to point at Wren and then, while still keeping her at gunpoint, tied her up.

Just like that, she'd lost Webby again. She almost couldn't be upset with her mother for having lost her. It looked like Webby was a slippery child to keep hold of.

-

Webby could still feel her mother's embrace and she debated going back. It'd been warm and comforting and, unlike Agent 22's hugs, untainted by Steelbeak's comments. She was still crying, though she couldn't figure out why. She swiped at her cheeks.

"Webby?" Steelbeak queried. "We're headed to the new base. It's not set up completely yet, but it will be."

He nudged her. "You're a FOWL star, like your dad. Stars don't cry."

Maybe they didn't. Maybe she was fooling herself by thinking that her mother wanted her in any capacity. It reminded her of Agent 22 and her head throbbed suddenly, prompting her to curl into herself. She bit back a whimper of pain. Granny…

"Attagirl," Steelbeak said. "We'll be there before you know it."

Webby clenched her eyes shut and shuddered. Her mind flashed back to breaking Dewey's wrist and then to her mother's distraught face. Her head ached harder and she longed for her arms about her again. The Eggheads would be keeping her at gunpoint.

How had her mother known where to find her? Were her attempts to cajole Webby real or farcical? How was Webby supposed to know? She could feel the tears again, though she didn't understand why. She hugged herself while Steelbeak talked on the phone and ordered his underlings.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She'd forgotten she was carrying it. Sneaking a glance at her father to determine whether he was busy (he was driving and talking on the phone-he wasn't liable to notice her any time soon), she snuck it out. It was a text from Lena.

"What's going on, pink? I went over to McDuck Manor and you weren't there. They said you flew the coop."

Texting was a long, laborious process, but Webby did it regardless.

"I did. They were only holding me back. I'm with my father now. My mom's in the back-she's been immobilized."

Radio silence for a couple of minutes, as if Lena didn't know how to parse this.

"Didn't you say your dad kidnapped you? Why would you go back to him? Stockholm Syndrome? And what the hell, your mom is there too? I didn't know you even had a mom."

Webby disregarded her comment regarding her mother.

Stockholm Syndrome would imply that she'd been brainwashed in some capacity. She disagreed. After all, she knew what she was doing, didn't she? She'd gone to her father of her own volition, hadn't she? The memories before that, back at Funso's and her rescue from FOWL HQ, were blurry. And she was still crying, albeit silently, to avoid drawing attention to herself.

"I know what I'm doing."

"No offense, but you really don't."

Webby bristled, but the anger was distant, disconnected to her. "How do you know?"

"Because I saw how the others treat you. They care about you. Your dad's using you."

"You don't know anything." Though text messages couldn't convey tone, she hoped Lena read the flatness in her response.

"I know a hell of a lot more than you think I do. The others are looking for you. Where are you?"

"I don't know."

She also didn't know why she was still talking to her. If she was going to cut ties to anyone insignificant, surely Lena fit the bill. Yet she didn't. She found herself clinging to Lena like a life preserver in the middle of the ocean.

"Do you know which direction you're heading in?"

Webby glanced at a nearby road sign. "Route 95 North. Heading toward Canada, I think."

If she remembered her geography properly. She frowned and added, "Mile marker 25."

Steelbeak was glancing over at her and she stiffened. He grabbed her phone and threw it out the window. It shattered on the highway pavement and the person behind them ran it over. Webby's heart sank, though she didn't know why. That was the end of her conversation with Lena, that was for sure.

She heard a commotion from behind her and twisted in her seat. Steelbeak grumbled, reluctantly pulling over and putting on his flashers. The divider between the two sections of the truck opened and her mother appeared, holding a gun. Webby didn't know how she'd slipped her bonds, but there were five unconscious Eggheads behind her.

Wren aimed the gun at Steelbeak's head. "We're going back to Duckburg."

Steelbeak pulled out a gun too and sighed as if Wren were deliberately making his life more difficult. "No, we're not."

Her heart thudded. There was something surreal about her parents pointing guns at each other. Steelbeak glanced at her and she could see the wheels turning in his mind. She jumped just as he went to reach for her and grabbed Wren about the midsection. Wren wrapped an arm about her daughter.

"You keep choosing wrong, Webby," Steelbeak said, sounding exasperated. "I keep telling you that SHUSH and the others are good for nothing and yet, you pick them every time. I thought the chip would've put a stop to that."

"Webby, listen to me," Wren said quietly. "I never left you. I've been in the background for your whole life. I'm not trying to manipulate you."

"Just what someone who's trying to manipulate you would say," Steelbeak jeered.

Webby's mind whirled. She couldn't process what was happening. Her head pounded and black spots appeared on the edges of her vision. The harder she tried to remember her grandmother and the others, the worse it got. She found herself hyperventilating.

"No, no, it's all right," Wren soothed. "Shush, Webby."

"Can't you see what's right in front of you?" Steelbeak scoffed. "She's only here because it's convenient for her. If she really cared about you, why would she wait so long to show up? She could've wrenched you from me at any time if she wanted to. She doesn't love you. She doesn't want you.

"I love you. I care about you."

Steelbeak had never said those words to her before and yet, they rang false. Nonetheless, Webby had yearned to hear them for so long that she was paralyzed. Every child wants to feel like they're loved and wanted. Her throat constricted.

"Of course I love and want her," Wren snapped. "I've been in the background because I knew you'd pull something like this. I knew you'd try to make her choose between us while you were holding all the cards. You fucking bastard."

"She wouldn't be so angry if it weren't true," Steelbeak replied smoothly.

Webby gasped, shuddering uncontrollably. Whatever was prompting this, she wanted it to stop. Now. She heard Dewey's wrist snap in her mind again and could barely recall the boy or his brothers. Her knees quaked and she collapsed to her knees. Her mother gathered her up into her arms.

"Shush, Webby. It's okay. It's okay," Wren said.

"Who were you talking to?" Steelbeak snapped, choosing his battles carefully.

"No one," Webby lied, the lie having come as second nature to her.

Steelbeak scowled. "Put the gun down, Wren. Or I'll shoot you."

"If you can shoot me first," she countered. "And what do you think this would do to our daughter?"

Steelbeak spared a glance for Webby, whose beak was quivering. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes and she swiped at her face.

"We're at an impasse," Steelbeak sighed. "Great. It's not like I had important business elsewhere. Fine. Let's talk."

He said the last like it was a pejorative.

"What did you do to her?" Wren demanded. "Why is she like this?"

"I did what was necessary to make her into the person she needs to be. You would coddle her and 'keep her safe'. She doesn't need that."

"I kept Black Heron from killing her, goddamn it."

Wren's arm tightened about Webby.

Steelbeak blinked. "That was you?"

"You really thought your control over her was that good?" Wren sneered. "Who the hell do you think kept leaving her little messages and distracting her at key times? Are you that arrogant? No, wait, don't tell me. You are."

Steelbeak seemed to be assessing the situation anew. He lowered the gun and then put it back in its holster. Wren breathed a sigh of relief and lowered her own weapon. Unlike Steelbeak, however, she didn't put it away or drop it.

"There's another way this can go," Steelbeak told them. "You could stay with me, both of you. You can't tell me that you want to return to SHUSH, Wren. They let this happen to you."

"You. Raped. Me," Wren spat. Despite Webby's presence, she seemed to have forgotten about her entirely.

"It was consensual."

"You slipped me a roofie!"

"You can't prove that."

Wren shuddered, stamping down on her fury. "You're unbelievable."

"If I'd raped you, then why did I kidnap and raise Webby?"

"Because you see her as an extension of yourself! That's how you see everyone. Don't give me that bullshit, Steelbeak. You're not keeping her out of the 'goodness of your heart'. Heaven knows you don't have one."

"You could rule at my side," Steelbeak said, undeterred, ignoring Wren's comment. "We could be the heads of FOWL together. What do you say, Wren?"

Wren spat in Steelbeak's face and he wiped it away. He pulled the gun back out of its holster with a heavy sigh.

"I was afraid you'd say that."

Wren moved faster than him, however, and slammed the gun down on his temple. He staggered but didn't go down. She hit him again and he grabbed her wrist. Then, despite the head injury or perhaps because of it, he pulled Wren against him and kissed her.

Webby felt like she was watching this outside of herself. Her skin crawled and she realized her parents had, in fact, completely forgotten about her. They were arguing about her, yes, but they seemed to have missed the whole point that she was present and listening. She charged, grabbing the gun from her mother's hand, where it was in danger of falling to the floor.

Then she hesitated. She could see herself shooting Steelbeak, but he was her father. On the other hand, Wren was her mother. Wren had protected her from Black Heron by her own admission. Steelbeak hadn't known about that. What did that say about him?

She didn't know what to do. She normally relied on her emotions to make a decision and she couldn't access them. In the distance, she heard sirens. Her parents didn't. Wren had gone stiff against Steelbeak and Webby wasn't sure why she wasn't fighting him off. It might've been the shock.

Shit. She didn't know what to do and the sirens were getting closer. She gasped back a sob. Paralyzed with indecision, she waited for the inevitable. 

* * *

Mrs. Beakley blinked when her phone rang and it was SHUSH. Right after SHUSH called giving her the coordinates of Steelbeak's tracking device, Lena did. Since she hadn't known that Lena had her number, she did a double take. She knew it had to be Lena's, however, because when she answered, Lena's sarcasm rang out loud and clear.

"I've got a tip for you, Abbey Road," Lena said. "Webby's with her mom and Steelbeak at mile marker 25 on Route 95."

She'd been about to inform the teenager that she knew already when the second half of what Lena had said penetrated. "Her mother is there?"

"That's what I said. Webby said her mom's been immobilized."

Mrs. Beakley covered the speaker to conceal a curse and Lena sneered.

"I can still hear you."

"Are you positive her mother is there?"

"Look, Ringo, would I lie to you? About Webby?"

"I don't know. Would you stop with the British cracks? Also, calling me Ringo is insulting."

"Fine, whatever. Anyway, after she told me this, her phone went out of service. You can try if you want, but it's a lost cause."

Why would it have gone out of service? What was going on there? She feared for her family.

"I'm not telling you this because I'm looking for a handout," Lena continued. "I'm telling you this because I'm worried about her."

"I am too," Mrs. Beakley responded. "I'll contact the authorities, but I want a crack at Steelbeak again myself. Clearly, the last time didn't stick."

"Clearly," Lena said dryly.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but...thank you, Lena."

"Her dad abused her. I know what that looks like. Bring her back to Duckburg."

She wasn't going to snap at her about ordering her around. Instead, Lena's words made an odd echo in her mind. If Lena knew what it looked like, then...Lena had been abused too. Suddenly, she felt guilty for having been snippy with her earlier. Lena's sarcasm was a defense mechanism.

"Lena…"

"Don't. Just find Webby, okay? And kick her dad's ass."

And with that, Lena hung up. Mrs. Beakley scowled, immediately contacting the authorities, although they'd already been in the process of sending pursuit. The additional information about Wren was helpful, however. Mrs. Beakley's stomach churned. Surely Steelbeak wouldn't harm Wren in front of Webby. Surely he had that much restraint.

She told herself that, but she didn't believe it.

She wished she were heading to apprehend Steelbeak along with the authorities. However, if she left now and used Launchpad's insane driving skills, she might be able to catch up. It was worth a shot.

* * *

In Steelbeak's mind, it went like this. He would kiss Wren, she'd melt against him, and she'd capitulate to his demands. He pulled her closer; she really was wearing quite a skintight outfit. He could feel her every curve and his body was responding.

The shot to the pills, therefore, took him aback.

Steelbeak groaned, doubling over, and Wren punched him in the face. The gun had fallen to the floor and between pained tears, he saw Webby holding it. Webby. Fuck. He'd forgotten all about her. But, hey, now that he had Wren here, perhaps he could have an heir and a spare.

Wren karate chopped him in the head and he staggered but didn't fall. The sirens were getting closer and he ought to get this show on the road. He tackled Wren and they rolled about in the truck bed. She was squirming, trying to evade his grip, and he grinned.

"Stop!" Webby ordered, cocking the gun. The sound stilled both of them. Her hands were shaking.

"Don't aim that unless you intend to shoot someone," Steelbeak scolded. He pinned Wren's wrists to the floor and straddled her.

"Did you rape my mother?" Webby asked and he caught the hitch in her voice. It was slight and anyone less familiar with her might have missed it.

"We can all be together," Steelbeak replied, his voice a little higher than normal due to the blow to the crotch. "Isn't that what you want? A big, happy family? No Agent 22 to foul things up. No SHUSH looming over your head. No Duck triplets to stand in your way."

He could see that his words were having an impact. Her arms lowered and she quivered, biting her lower beak half. He studied Webby's face carefully.

"Let go of her," Webby demanded.

"You seem to be forgetting who the adults are here. You don't give me orders," Steelbeak retorted. Wren struggled and flipped him over her head. Steelbeak went flying, slamming into the driver's seat. She landed on her feet and punched him in the solar plexus. Gasping, doubling over, he barely noticed when she rounded on him again and this time, slammed his head against the truck wall so hard that his vision doubled and his ears rung.

"You…" Wren breathed. "You monster.

"Webby, are you all right?"

Webby's gaze was wide and she shook her head. She stared at her parents; Steelbeak could see the fight or flight waging within her.

"Who are you?" she demanded. "Tell me the truth. Tell me what's really been going on."

Steelbeak would've been prouder of her if he hadn't been about to pass, but, it was hard to exult in his achievement when he fell unconscious after Wren crashed his head against the wall one last time. 

* * *

"My name is Wren Beakley," Wren said slowly, wary that Webby might bolt. "I'm SHUSH agent 232...and I'm your mother."

The sirens were almost upon them and she offered Webby a hand. "You have to trust me."

"No," Webby said flatly as tire wheels stopped before the truck and the sirens wailed louder, practically drowning out their conversation. "I don't."


	17. Chapter 17

Webby gazed out through the SHUSH vehicle's windows as they drove away. Her father was in another car and bound and gagged. She kept stealing glances at it and fidgeting. She didn't want to be here. She needed to be with her father. After all, he needed her. Wren and Mrs. Beakley had her in between them, probably to prevent her from escaping, though she knew she could have breezed past them were the doors not locked with the handles removed from the inside. It felt more like a police vehicle than a civilian car.

Again, her emotions were distant things. She felt angry and outraged, replaying the last conversation Steelbeak and Wren had had, not to mention seeing it in her mind's eye. Steelbeak had molded himself to her mother like he belonged against her; like he had the right to her. Webby's hands trembled and she sat on them to conceal it.

She was the byproduct of rape. Steelbeak wanted her because he considered her part of him, not for her own merits. Steelbeak had only told her he loved her to manipulate her as he always did. To him, Webby was nothing more than a toy. Her throat was tight and her eyes burned with tears. She was grateful that the adults were occupied discussing the future with the driver and the front passenger, Scrooge McDuck.

She squirmed, noting the divider between the front and backseat. Even if she escaped from between the two women, there was the divider to contend with and it was iron. She had nothing with which to cut it or melt it. Her heart pounded. It was imperative she reach her father, but why? In what respect was he truly her father? Wren had stayed with Webby, albeit undercover, close to Steelbeak despite her fear. She had kept an eye on Webby and held Black Heron at arm's length. Steelbeak couldn't say that much.

It had to the chip fueling her agitation.

"Webbigail?" Wren said softly and put a hand on her shoulder. "We're going to McDuck Industries to deactivate that chip. You'll be all right."

Webby scowled, looking down at her lab. The anxiety was ramping up, to the point where she could feel it pierce the barrier between her thoughts and her emotions. Her chest was tight and she was panicking. The lab meant scientists poking and prodding at her. She didn't want that. That was how she'd ended up with the chip in the first place. She didn't want to go. Couldn't her mother see that? Why was she subjecting her to this?

"Webby," Mrs. Beakley said, spying her granddaughter now rocking back and forth. "Webby!"

She lunged for the door anyway, hoping that the door release mechanism might be hidden, and Wren pulled her back. It didn't matter, anyway. There was no handle to be found. The doors would have to be opened from the outside. She kicked at the window and it held firm. The glass was strong, far stronger than she could break with one strong blow.

"You'll be okay, lass," Scrooge reassured her. "No one's gonna hurt ye. Calm down."

"Not going there, not going there, not going there, no," Webby gasped. "No more scientists, no more poking, no!"

"Do we need to sedate her?" the driver asked, some SHUSH official Webby didn't recognize. Webby swung her leg at the window again. Perhaps she could hit it enough times to weaken it and then break through. A sharp prick in her arm and then a burning sensation halted her and she spun about to spy her grandmother holding a hypodermic needle. No. No.

"I was afraid this might happen," Mrs. Beakley sighed. "So I planned for it."

The soporific was already having an effect. Her eyelids drooped and she kicked out, but it didn't come anywhere near to connecting. Whimpering, she flailed until her limbs became like lead. Betrayal was sharp and painful, like a metallic tang in her beak, and she looked up at her grandmother with hurt in her eyes until her eyelids dropped against her own volition.

"I'm sorry," Mrs. Beakley said and smoothed back Webby's hair. "There was no other way."

Webby couldn't open her beak to refute that. There was always another way. They were keeping her from her father and now they were going to torture her. They didn't care about her at all. Like Steelbeak, they were manipulating her for their own advantage. They were going to...they were going to…

She felt someone hold her hand.

"Sssh, it'll be all right, Webby," Wren murmured. "I'm here. I won't let anything bad happen to you, I promise."

If only she could believe that…

* * *

Judging by his raised eyebrows, Gyro hadn't expected their patient to arrive already sedated. When they reached McDuck Industries, the triplets were already there, Dewey sporting a new cast on his broken wrist. Mrs. Beakley grimaced at it and then laid Webby down gently on a table set aside for this specific purpose. Webby hadn't stirred since the soporific had taken effect, but she did occasionally whimper, which tore at her heart. Her poor, battered Webbigail.

After a brief conversation with Gyro, in which he assured them he'd render the chip inactive and then, if he could, destroy it without harming Webby, he and Fenton shooed them out. Mrs. Beakley couldn't stop pacing; Wren was chewing gum and grinding her teeth. The tension was high and Dewey was asking Wren to tell him what had happened after Webby had run to Steelbeak.

Any number of things could go wrong with this. The chip might remain on despite Gyro's ministrations. The chip might not be able to be destroyed. The chip could be destroyed, but by doing so, Gyro could cause irreparable brain damage. Webby could lose her memories. Webby could end up in a coma. She was beside herself with worry over her granddaughter. They had just gotten her back. It wasn't fair to lose her again.

Unable to linger in one spot and knowing that her pacing was probably irritating the others, Mrs. Beakley went for a walk. There wasn't much to see, considering the lab was currently off-limits, but she could use the chance to stretch her legs. She felt wretched for Webby and loathing for Steelbeak flooded her. Steelbeak had been locked away, in a much more secure cell this time that was located in a wireless dead zone. Evidently, Gyro had discovered an anti-tech asteroid piece and was using it to prevent Steelbeak from communicating with his Eggheads.

She couldn't believe Steelbeak had gotten away with all of this for so long. They would also have to deal with the fall-out from Webby killing Black Heron, albeit in self-defense. They would probably have to hire a psychiatrist to deal with Webby's issues, particularly after Steelbeak's "parenting". There was also the not so small matter of her petty larceny and Lena's influence, although she wasn't as sure as she had been that Lena was entirely bad. Yes, there was something "off" about Lena, but she could see the marks of an abused child in her too. It worried Beakley.

After several long, agonizing hours, Beakley had made her way back to the waiting room to discover Fenton ready for them. He beamed and it felt like a giant weight had fallen off Mrs. Beakley's shoulders. They rushed inside to discover a groggy Webby blinking up at them curiously.

"What's going on?" Webby slurred.

"I was able to deactivate the chip and then destroy almost all of it," Gyro said. "There's still a small part that I couldn't extract without causing permanent damage, but there isn't enough left to re-activate, even if Steelbeak could manage it. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go study that chip. It's fascinating technology, even if it's a bit rudimentary."

Webby sat up and Wren pushed her back down. Webby made a faint protestation but didn't fight her.

"How are you feeling?" Dewey asked.

"Like I got hit by a ten-pound weight in the head," Webby replied, but at least her words were no longer slurred. She stared at him. "I'm sorry about your wrist."

"It's cool," Dewey said and flashed her a grin. "I've always wanted a trained supervillain that turns out to be a good person to break something on me. It gives me a hell of a story."

Louie facepalmed.

Mrs. Beakley smoothed Webby's hair back. "You'll be all right, Webby."

"Are you staying?" Webby asked, ignoring her grandmother's comment to focus on her mother. "You're not going back undercover to keep an eye on Steelbeak, are you?"

"No," her mother said and scowled. "I'm done with that assignment. My cover was blown anyway. Again. There is something singularly infuriating about that man."

"So, we're all a big happy family, right?" Dewey asked.

"I don't know about that," Wren said, looking uncertainly at her mother.

"We'll try our best," Mrs. Beakley reassured him and Scrooge stepped forward to squeeze Webby's shoulder.

"Get some rest, lass. We'll be here when ye need us," he promised.

"Mr. McDuck?" Webby ventured.

"What is it, lass?"

"Thanks," she said. She looked down and then forced her gaze back up again. "For what Gyro did, I mean. Thanks for letting him help me."

"Of course," he said and hugged her briefly, careful not to touch the back of her head. Gyro had needed to cut her hair and shave her head, so Webby looked like she had a Mohawk. It might not be such a bad look for her granddaughter, come to think of it. Mrs. Beakley smiled.

They were about ready to leave, as Webby's eyelids were drooping, when Webby called out one last time.

"And guys?" she said. "I remember almost everything now."

The relief that Mrs. Beakley felt was staggering and she rushed back in to hug her granddaughter tightly. "We're never letting you out of our sight again."

Scrooge gave her a strange look. "We'll work on that."

She knew she'd need to let Webby grow and become a normal child if that was at all possible, but in the meantime, she cherished knowing that her granddaughter was safe, finally out of Steelbeak's hands, and on the mend. What more could she ask for?

"I love you," Wren and Mrs. Beakley murmured just as Webby fell back asleep. She might've been out, but Mrs. Beakley thought she got the message just as well, judging by the faint smile on her beak.

* * *

Steelbeak was down but not out. He'd find a way to get his revenge, make no mistake about it. And even if they had removed the chip, which seemed like a given at this stage, he would find a way to make Webby his again and perhaps her mother as well. He wasn't going to take this lying down.

Never give up, never give in. He'd get them back one way or another.


End file.
